This Is My Story
by RandomKahn
Summary: Techniques and magicks born of another world, a sense of morality and justice forged by this one: these are the cards that I have been dealt and the hand that I must play. My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and this is my story. FFX/Naruto crossover
1. Arrival and Departure

I'm going to say this once: I don't own Naruto or Final Fantasy, or anything at all, really. But wait... wait and watch, and one day I'll own everything. EVERYTHING! The whole world will be mine for the taking, and no one will stop me, because no one _can_ stop me. Ha... ha ha ha! Mwu ha ha ha ha ha! Bwa ha ha ha ha- (clears throat) ahem.

Rated T for language & violence.

I just thought that you should all know that I have a habit of reading or hearing things and incorporating it into my writing. I'm like Kakashi that way. So if you see anything that appears to be stolen from someone else, let me know and I will do something about it. It is unintentional, unless of course it is obviously intentional, in which case enjoy it.

* * *

_** Chapter 1: Arrival and Departure, Hello and Good-Bye**_

_It is a truth of this world that all stories must have a turning point, a climax. And it is also true that at this point, the entire direction of the story must change. Maybe it's when a son becomes a father, or when a student realizes he loves to teach, it is an event that is unparallelled in its importance.  
_

_For life, and for me, it is no different. At some point something happened to make me the someone I am today, __and over the years, I have decided that this is that point, that this is where everything changed. This is where I decided that the guarded would become a guardian, and where he who had to be saved would become the savior. This... this, comrades, is my story. _

--

My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and when I was seven, I was involved in a little _incident_.

See, on my seventh birthday, which coincidentally falls on the same day as the Kyuubi's assault on Konoha, the residents of my village got together for a memorial of sorts. And, as what always seems to happens at memorials, people got drunk. Well, some stuff happened(part of which was kinda my bad), and the mourners ended up pursuing me in a village-wide chase.

Guess how _that_ turned out.

They trailed after me for a bit, letting me scurry around before I was eventually cornered in an alleyway. For a second there I thought I was going to die, and let me tell you, it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. You can't imagine the fear that I felt at the moment, and to be perfectly honest, neither can I. Not anymore at least.

Anyway, it was at that particular moment in time when _he _appeared, in all his italicized glory.

He was standing on top of a building, looking down at us, and drinking out of a large, white canteen he had tied to his waist. He wore a red coat, held partially closed by two brown belts looped on top of a silver one. His scarred face was half-obscured by a pair of dark sunglasses, while the high collar of his jacket blocked the lower half. For a moment, I had thought that he was missing an arm, but I would soon learn that it was just tucked into the inside of his coat. What really drew my attention though, was the sword that he seemed to have stabbed into the roof of the building.

Letting go of his bottle, the man in red allowed it to drop and hang lazily at his side. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing a sigh or a groan, or something to that effect, as he lifted his blade out of its resting place.

The stupid drunks didn't even notice him, which ispretty sad considering the man wasn't even _trying _to hide the sheer amount of _presence _emanating from himself.

One dude, the mob boss, so to speak, took a few steps forward, his face twisted in a savage little grin. And it was at _that _particular moment in time when the guy in red jumped down between me and them, and _plunged_ his sword into the ground. I remember him, the red guy, pulling his partially hidden hand out of his coat to get a two-handed grip on his blade. Knowing what I know today, he must have flashed through his handsigns so fast that it looked like he never even let go of his sword.

"Pitiful." Speaking calmly in that oh-so-manly voice of his, the man caused an explosion to erupt from beneath the crowd, throwing them all back. "Dragon Fang!"

The 'boss' managed to recover quickly, and yelled out as he got up, waving a knife. It looked like a butter knife compared to the giant slab of steel sticking out of the ground, "Get lost, old man! You don't want to fuck with us!" Poor misguided fool, tsk tsk. _Apparently,_ the moron was under the impression that the man in red was susceptible to intimidation.

And I may take some liberties in saying that, he was not.

My savior ripped his sword out of the ground, and hefted it over his shoulder. He scoffed, "I don't foresee any difficulties in dealing with _this _particular pile of garbage." (Alright, he didn't say that, but it would have been oh-so-awesome if he had) "Auron," the man said, turning his head around to look at me all badass and stuff. I must have looked confused, because he added on, "My name."

The drunken ninja didn't take too kindly to being brushed off so easily and charged Auron. So please, allow me to repeat, _idiot_.

Auron stopped him, with one hand I might add, and managed to wrestle, more like snatch, the knife out of the drunk's hand. He handed it to me while lazily holding off the thug, "Know how to use it?" I nodded my head in affirmation, and though you may be wondering why, that's a story for another time.

Auron's next words came with a hint of amusement, "I believe they are going to attack us now."

And attack they did. I managed to slice up a a few legs, but Auron did most of the work. There was no grace, no showmanship, no overcomplicated footwork in his movements, but it was quick, brutal, powerful and effective. Not a one was killed by him, though, and I think that shows even more discipline on his behalf, the man _had _just walked in on them threatening a small child.

Eventually, the ANBU showed up, drawn by the explosion made by whatever Auron had done-

Before I go on, you should know something: The ANBU are the elite, the best of the best, and the village's greatest shinobis, and all of them, _all of them_, are on _my_ side. When it comes down to it, not the villagers', nor the council's, hell, maybe not even the Hokage's, _mine. _Maybe it was respect for what was done to me, maybe it was because of the treatment I got from the villagers, maybe it was because _they _were the ones that were fighting on the front lines that night and had seen what a real monster was, all I know is, that they protected me. They kept me safe, and as far as I know, they _always_ had my back, no matter what.

Once, there was a guy who made ANBU. He didn't like me, had me confused with someone else. The idiot had the bright idea to _express_ his opinion in the middle of ANBU headquarters. Fighting a hunter-nin one-on-one is generally not advisable, even if you're ANBU yourself. Fighting all of them? Heh. But don't worry, he's still alive, he's just not allowed around pointy objects, or dull objects, or windows, or _colors_. Or Anko. That last one has nothing to do with the previous four. Completely isolated incident. Maybe.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the ANBU were tying up the mob. Auron turned to me,"Your name?"

"U-Uzumaki Nar-"

"NARUTO!" I turned to see an old man calling my name. He jumped from atop a building to land next to me, and turned as he spoke to Auron and requested his name.

"Auron."

"Auron...?"

Auron peered at him over his sunglasses. Ok, it wasn't so much peering as it was telling him to drop it with his eyes. Auron doesn't _peer._ "Auron, just Auron."

"Well Auron-san, I must thank you, I'm not sure young Naruto here would have escaped this incident unharmed if it wasn't for your help. I am in your debt."

"No thanks are necessary. Though, I must inquire as to why a mob was chasing a small child."

"I'm afraid that I am not at liberty to discuss that information."

"Then who _is_ at liberty to discuss that information?"

The Hokage got defensive all of a sudden, "No one."

I decided to cut in then, "Hey, hey! What's _inquire_ mean?"

"It means to ask," Auron replied.

"Well, what did the old man say?" Some of the ANBU smiled under their masks at my complete and utter lack of respect. Then frowned once my question sunk in.

"It's a secret."

"Is that what the old man said or are you saying that?" I said confused.

"The old man."

"You don't like to talk a lot, do you?" I questioned.

"I say what I need to and speak when it is necessary," Auron said.

"Fine then, Creepy Red Man." I said childishly.

"Whatever small fry."

I screamed, "I AM NOT A MIDGET!"

"You are," he said, completely calm.

"I AM NOT!"

"You are."

"Hmph!" I said crossing my arms and turning away.

A few minutes passed. "Where are your parents?" he asked unexpectedly.

"Nowhere."

"Nowhere? You mean dead?"

"No, the lady at the orphanage said I don't have any parents. She said I didn't deserve them. That's why she locked me in my room whenever people came." I answered truthfully.

"Does this mob business happen often?"

"Not really."

Auron turned to the old man, "Hokage, I wish to become Naruto's guardian."

The old man looked stunned, well more than stunned, he was more like 'Are you fucking serious!?'

"W-Why?" He managed to stutter out, letting the disrespect slide.

Auron looked him dead in the eye. "You refuse?"

The old man seemed to realize what he looked like, "No, no. It's just I must be suspicious of your intentions, you see. It would not be the first time some seemingly harmless civilian got the idea to kill Naruto-kun as he slept."

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"It's the right thing to do?" the Hokage asked unsure of what he had just heard..

Auron cocked an eyebrow, "What of it? Is that not a good enough reason?"

"No, no, it's just that the time when people did something simply because it was the right thing to do has long since passed."

"I wish to be his guardian, and that's all one needs to be a guardian," Auron said looking around, seemingly dismissing the Hokage. No one _dismisses_ the Hokage.

The old man having realized what happened, tried to reassert himself into more suitable position."Well, we'll just have to- Where is Naruto?"

"He walked off. He overheard us."

"What? I must talk with him about this-"

"Let him go. Give him time to think." Auron _ended _the conversation.

* * *

You know, I really didn't know _what _to think. Here comes this guy, and he saves me from getting the beating of a lifetime. Possibly even getting killed. And he wants to protect me, because it's the right thing to do. Should I feel happy that someone cares? Angry that I was some charity case? Suspicious? Suspicious. That's what had happened to me. Use to be I jumped and screamed in joy every time someone smiled at me. Now, I'm suspicious of someone who wants to guard me. NO! I won't let them win. I won't let those stupid villagers make me something I'm not! I'm going to be Hokage someday, then they'll see. But first things, first.

I rushed back to Auron and the old man. "Hey Auron!" I yelled trying to make an impressive entrance. He turned to me. "Train me!"

"If that is what you wish." And that was that. Nothing legal went down. Auron requested a house, something simple, with a big yard. The Hokage provided it. It wasn't a simple house, it was pretty big, but I suppose it depends on your definition of simple. It seemed very homey. It had a giant training ground and Auron put it to good use.

Before I go on, you need to know something. The old man, he taught me to be human. Auron, taught me to be a man. He wasn't my father, more how I imagine an uncle would act. He let me be, but was there when I need him. He _did _give me "the talk," though. It was not fun, for me that is. Auron seemed to be having a blast. I don't know what he was thinking. I was eight years old at the time. You'd never know looking at him, but Auron was a very crazy man. Insane actually.

Auron never took time out of the day to teach me his techniques. I wouldn't realize it until years later but, he taught me something better. He taught me how to think. He never explained _what_ made the Dragon Fang explode, but he explained _why_ it exploded, a physical reaction to a mix of chakra and brute strength.. Auron taught me that the knowing the basics, was ten times more important than knowing the moves.

That's not to say, I never learned to fight. On the contrary, I learned a lot. I learned by watching. You see, there were some ninja who had bounties on their heads that hung around the outskirts of Konoha. They were too strong for the police, but not so much a threat that the Hokage would waste valuable ninja resources on them. That's where Auron came in. Slice, dice and wrapped up all nice. I followed him on a number of these excursions, never getting involved, but watching. I think he knew, but never bothered to do anything about it, he was just that kind of guy. He once said that I had the privilege of doing whatever I wanted to with my life, just so long as I fulfilled my obligations and kept my promises. Naturally, I took those words to heart.

He fought too with ANBU. Not that they had problems with him. They and a few choice jounin wanted to test themselves against the "Red Devil," the moniker he earned working as a bounty hunter. I remember one pretty boy in particular who had a crush on Auron. He had black eyes and they went red when they fought. He _always_ got his ass handed to him. His name was Itachi something-or-other.

But the majority of times I saw Auron fight, was against fiends. I wouldn't learn what they were or how and why they came to the house, but they always seemed to follow Auron. All I knew was that they seemed to be cruel mockeries of creatures that actually existed. And Auron insisted that they be slaughtered without fail. They always dissolved into lights, especially the big ones.

Whether it was fighting ANBU, jounin, missing-nin or fiends, I saw a lot of Auron's techniques, his entire arsenal, in action. Most of them were sword techniques. He was always using his sword. He never went anywhere without it, don't know where he kept it, but I know he always had it. I hate to say it, but I practically worshiped Auron. I remembered everything he ever said to me. Besides the Hokage, he was the closest thing I had to a family, a friend. Until that day..

It started off just like any other, I was watching Auron, he was in the yard and a fiend showed up. Except this one was bigger, a lot bigger, and uglier, a lot uglier, and purple, light purple. It had horns too, Auron called it a Behemoth King. At first it wasn't much of a fight, Auron slashed, the fiend attacked, but then it used some crazy jutsu I later recognized as Flare. It caught Auron off-guard and he ended up getting burns on his body. He was, needless to say, _enraged_.

That day I witnessed one of the sickest things I ever will. I saw the Tornado.

First Auron started spinning around, faster and faster. He stuck his sword out and and winds started to form. It was HUGE. There wasn't a single person in the village who didn't see it. Then suddenly, he stopped and slashed. The tornado rushed at the Behemoth King. Throwing it into the air and twirling it around like a rag doll. Auron grabbed the canteen off his waist and threw it into the raging winds. He lit it on fire. He. Lit. It. On. Fire. Let me repeat that, he lit a hundred story high _tornado_ on _fire_. But somehow, the damn fiend would not die. But the attack did serve a secondary purpose, it alerted all the ANBU in the village that something big was going down.

I can't imagine what it was like, to arrive at the place of residence of the container of the demon who ravaged and completely annihilated your village nine years ago, only to find a gigantic demonic-looking creature, who had just survived getting caught in a _flaming tornado_. And who, by the way, was looking completely and utterly _pissed_.

But the ANBU, fought on. Despite their fear, despite every instinct in their body screaming for them to get the hell out of there, they fought valiantly. With their combined effort, and with Auron backing them up, the Behemoth King was weakened. It was Auron, though, who delivered the final blow.

He charged it one last time and slice right through the purple flesh with a devastating Armor Break. Then again with another. And then another. One after another, Auron just kept swinging. I lost count how many times he hit that thing. Again and again and again until it was finally just a mass of dissolving lights.

With a deep sigh, Auron finally lost the last vestiges of his strength. The tall man fell to one knee, bracing himself against his sword for support, and trying desparately to regain his breath.

_Meteor..._

An unearthly whisper passed through the battlefield, unheard by all but the most chakra sensitive. To most, it would have meant nothing, but to one, to the one who had heard that cry before, it meant _everything_.

"Damn..."

The light and energy arising from the corpse of the behemoth pooled together in the air, forming a single large mass of heat and _power_.

Then, the sky erupted into a rain of earth and fire.

All of the ANBU managed to get away, but Auron being so close, and so tired, couldn't. He got hit by at least five, all of which exploded on contact. His left arm was literally _crushed_ by the force, and his whole right side was completely flattened. His body suffered burns all over, and every cut and scrape he had suffered instantly melted shut. And if that wasn't enough, fiends.

Fiends, monsters, animals the likes of which you cannot imagine,came out of nowhere. A literal rip in the universe seemed to have opened up with the defeat of that Behemoth King.

"What...?"

I was nine years old that day.

"No..."

And I had just lost the closest thing to family I had ever had.

"No."

Anger was all I could remember feeling.

_**Yes.**_

Yeah, anger... and rage.

**_Good._**

Primal, animalistic, and monstrous.

**_Hate._**

Unbridled fury, I remember unbridled _fury_.

_**And kill.**_

I wanted to kill something, anything, ab-so-lute-ly _anything._

_**Hate, and kill.**_

Those damn _fiends_.

**_Be a good little boy now, Naruto...  
_**

FiNaLly, aFtEr sEvEn _years_, I hAd _finally_ foUnd sOmeOne who hAd _accepted _mE, who HaD LOVEd mE, and _HE_ had been _TAKEN AWAY_.

_**Be a good little boy and hate.**_

Those stupid monsters- THOSE STUPID ANIMALS!- who the hell did they think they wERE!?

_**And kill.**_

It was all sort of a blur after that, I don't remember much. But I _do _remember inhuman howls of pain, and primitive cries for mercy. I remember light, and heat, and red, and a feeling of being in complete and utter control. I remember wondering if I was god.

But as I stood there, amidst the dancing pyreflies and the red chakra that seemed to permeate the air, I realized something. I didn't feel satisfied. The adrenaline was gone, the sick euphoria I had felt was disappearing, and Auron was dead. I was alone again. But then I heard coughing, like someone was hacking up a lung, because someone was hacking up a lung. Auron was still alive, for now.

I dragged my body over to him. He looked at me with that damned look in his eyes and said, "I thought you'd be crying." Crying! He's going to die and his last words to me is 'I thought you'd be crying!' So I tell him, "SHUT UP!" You know what he does, he laughs, he laughs like I never thought he could laugh.

And then it hits me. So I say it, "You're a dead man."

He looks at me behind his sunglasses and says, "You have no idea how right you are." He has a coughing fit. He takes a deep breath, and I begin to think that I can hear his heart beat. "Take this." I can, it's really slow like it's about to give out. He pulls a red orb out of his jacket. "It's a record(cough)it will explain everything." I realize that it's not his heartbeat, but mine.

"Everything?" I question.

Auron doesn't answer me. "Don't talk... The fiends were... trying to kill me." He says between breaths. "I do not belong here... The fiends were... trying to send me back... to Spira."

"Wha?" I said.

"Shut up!" He screams. He has _never_ screamed at me before. This man has something to say and he's going to say it. "I... wanted... to stay with you. You remind me... of someone." He starts to cough, really coughing, like he's going to spit up his insides. "You spent(cough) too much time(cough) with me. The fiends..." there was a long coughing fit "now see that connecton(cough) They would not have torn through the wall if they did not."

"Wait, what?"

"Naruto... the fiends will hunt you down now... just like they hunted me. You have to be ready for them."

Auron got real sad then. He looked so sad, and yet so happy, and I was so confused.

"Every story... must have an ending... and this is mine. This old fool has played at life for far too long..." He paused and looked up into the sky. "But for you... this is only the beginning. Your story... begins here. Please... Naruto, make it a good one."

Auron's gazed drifted back down to me.

"And... one last thing." Using his only mobile arm, Auron pulled me into the bloodiest hug of my life. "Naruto... I'm _sorry_."

* * *

Every human being has a sort of sixth sense, a feeling they get when something big is about to go down. It's not really developed like in other animals, but it _is _there. Right before a really big explosion, like a fireball or a whole mess of explosive tags, there's like a slow down, where our sixth sense kicks in, drowning out everything else. It's been referred to as the calm before the storm, and been compared to having your entire life flash before your eyes, I don't really know what to call it. It's so intense that even if you have no idea what's going on, your body, realizes the danger on an instinctual level.

It was like that.

One second, Auron was dying next to me, holding me, and the next, everything slowed down. Then he shattered. Just like that. The man who I would one day be proud to call my father shattered and exploded, pyreflies, little birds of light, rushing out of his body like caged beasts struggling to get free. It would have been beautiful, if I hadn't just watched my mentor die right before my eyes. As it was, I couldn't appreciate the scene, I couldn't appreciate the 'beauty.' Auron was dead. I knew I'd bounce back, because I always did, but... damn it, damn it all.

It never ends.

* * *

If I have borrowed something, I'll try and list it here:

_Auron(Final Fantasy X)_ - One of the seven playable characters

_Armor Break(Final Fantasy X)_ - A skill that was used to lower an enemies defense

_Flare(Final Fantasy X)_ - A high-level attack spell

_Meteor(Final Fantasy X)_ - Behemoth Kings used them after you defeated them

_Behemoth King(Final Fantasy X)_ - One of the random enemies that appear late-game

_Fiend(Final Fantasy X)_ - The name given to enemies in the game

_Dragon Fang(Final Fantasy X)_ - One of Auron's overdrives, the game's version of a finishing move

_Tornado(Final Fantasy X)_ - Another one of Auron's overdrives


	2. The Secret

_**Chapter Two: The Secret Revealed**_

I met Auron when I was seven, five years ago. Then, I lost him. I was nine then, and I'm twelve now, so it's been three years since that day.

Feels longer.

I've tried so hard to let it go, to move on, but I can't.

No matter what I'm doing: walking down the street, taking tests, training... I always get distracted by one memory or another. The only time I can keep him out of my head is when I'm pulling pranks; when I've got a purpose and a plan and _some _idea of what to do next. So yeah, I stuck with it.

Which I guess brings me to Umino Iruka.

When I first entered the academy(I was seven), Iruka was just like all the other teachers, just as hateful, just as _spiteful_, maybe even worse. But somewhere along the way, between yelling at me for stuff I couldn't control and punishing me for stuff that I could've but chose not to, he saw something in me worth seeing. Maybe it was pain, maybe it was loneliness- hell, maybe it was just comedic talent. All I know is, one day the scarred chuunin stopped me after class and took me out for dinner, and that was that.

Which I _know _brings me to my progress in the whole "greatest ninja to ever live" thing.

It's not working out so well.

I tried, I really tried, for Iruka, for the Hokage, for Auron. I tried to be strong, to be a true ninja. I even took the Genin Exams early, twice. But no matter how much I try, no matter how much I train, I just can't do it, I come across as the idiot, the prankster, the guy who'll never become a good ninja, let alone a great one.

But this time is different. The Genin Exams are rolling around again, and this is my last chance, my last chance to pass. There is no _fourth _chance in the world of shinobi, there wasn't even supposed to be a second, or a third, but like I've said before, I've got friends in high places. This. Is. It. I will- No, I _have_ to pass.

Tomorrow, I become a full-fledged ninja, no ifs, ands, or buts.

And I suppose that that brings me full circle to the here and now.

I won't have time for pranks after the Exams, as I'll be busy with ninja stuff, so today I going to create my masterpiece. Just because I'm forced to pull pranks by reasons outside my control, it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it. On the contrary, I think they help me forget _because_ I enjoy it. So tomorrow, I'll do what no one else has the guts to do, and the streets... the streets will be crowded with people chanting my name:

Na-Ru-To! Na-Ru-To! Na-Ru-To!

* * *

"NARUTO! GET BACK HERE!"

It was a day like any other in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, except it wasn't. The Hokage Monument, had been desecrated. The culprit, Uzumaki Naruto. Which is why at this moment, Naruto found himself in a village-wide chase, across the rooftops and down in the streets. This chase had been going for a while now. Naruto's pursuers had tired long ago, while Naruto was still looking fresh.

Over a building, across the street, Naruto ran straight towards a cart selling jewelry and other such trinkets. The chuunin were expecting him to just up and jump over it. What they were _not_ expecting was for him to jump towards the cart, transform into a small ball, slide through a gap in the cart and reappear as Naruto on the other side. This stunned them so much that their bodies, moving on auto-pilot, crashed into said cart _and_ left them, for lack of a better term, incapacitated.

But Naruto didn't dawdle long, he knew that there were still other predators out there. They would regroup and when they did, it would be trouble. But as he turned around to continue his evasion of his pursuers, he caught sight of a green vest.

Green vest? Wait a minute. Brown hair, um... Ponytail, oh no... Scar across the nose. Damn.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

* * *

Today's the big day, the Genin Exams. And Naruto was worried. Yesterday he had been confident and sure of himself, but today, the truth had smacked him in the face.

He was screwed.

He was a master of the transformation, and fairly decent with the Kawarimi no Jutsu, but he couldn't pull off a clone to save his life. And lo and behold, the test for his advancement to genin, was the Bunshin no Jutsu.

But Naruto, no matter what happened, was still Naruto. He would not back down, not now, not ever. So, when they called his name to step into the examination room, he took a deep breath, reached into his enormous well of chakra and screamed "BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" at the top of his lungs. Naruto didn't know what he was expecting. Luck, divine blessings, a previously untapped source of skill and power to emerge from the depths of his soul. Anything, but that sickly, disgusting clone that looked like it had just been raped by a 50-foot tall amazonian woman.

"Naruto," Iruka said sadly. "You fail."

Naruto felt crushed, all his hard work, all his training, all his struggling, was for nothing. It was over, it was all over. Everything, his goal, his future, his _dream_, gone. Taken away from him by the two words he hated above all else. 'You fail.' But then a beacon of hope came in the form a sinister-eyed, silver-haired chunin.

"You know Iruka," Mizuki said, one eye on Naruto, "we could give him another shot."

"No, Mizuki, all the other students created three clones. Naruto only created one, and look at it, it's pathetic. Fail."

* * *

I find myself here, in a forest. A scroll strapped onto my back, and my body littered with scratches and bruises. I did it, I mastered the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. It was easy to make two clones on my first try. It was exactly the same as making a regular clone. But where before I had to use my chakra to shape light, I just had to use my chakra like glue, to stick together dust and other matter in the air to create a solid form. Molding dust is a lot easier than molding light. But that part in the instructions about imprinting a piece of your consciousness, what was that all about? And- Is that Iruka?

* * *

Of all the things Iruka was expecting Naruto to do, asking if he had passed was not one of them. Of all the things he was expecting to happen afterward, Mizuki turning traitor, was completely unexpected. So with kunai and a huge shuriken lodged within him, and him still trying to recover from the shock, he could do nothing but yell as Mizuki revealed the truth to Naruto.

_You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox! _

But it still hurt.

It hurt when he got a giant shuriken in the back, it hurt when he realized that he had grown soft, it hurt when he saw the pain in Naruto's eyes. But most of all it hurt to watch Naruto run away, to watch the one he'd come to regard as his little brother, run away like he, Iruka, was some abomination. It hurt to see Naruto run away like a frightened child, because it drove home the fact that he _was _a child and that it had taken Iruka _years _to realize it.

_Naruto... I'm sorry._

* * *

I sat there hiding behind a tree, as I listened to Iruka declare that he believed in me, that despite my_ situation_ he still considered me Uzumaki Naruto, and it was there, behind that tree, that I had an epiphany. Iruka was protecting me, not because he was the closest thing I had to a family, not because he was my friend, but because _I_ was the closest thing _he_ had to a family, because _I_ was _his _friend. And Mizuki dared to jeopardize that.

_You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox! _

So when that bastard made a move towards Iruka, I came out of hiding and attacked him, because that's what friends do.

I jumped and threw a right punch, the hardest I'd ever consciously thrown. More focused than ever, it was the strongest and only fully mastered Armor Break strike I had used to date. And then-See I knew this would happen, this always happens, whenever I try to be serious. Memories pop back up, this one was of my eighth birthday.

--**Flashback--**

_I had walked into the kitchen to see the Hokage and Auron waiting for me. I asked the old man,"What are you doing here?"_

_He smiled at me and said,"You turn eight today, Naruto-kun, and it's about time you had a real birthday. We're taking you out of the village." I felt like crying then. I remember tears beginning to sting my eyes._

_I unsuccessfully tried to blink them away, "Really, old man?" He nodded. I jumped onto the table, one hand on my hip and the other pointing at nothing in particular and pronounced to the world, "HELL YEAH! LET'S GO!"_

_Auron smirked at me."Fine, we leave as soon as Naruto puts on some clothes." I was confused by that, until I looked down. I was wearing nothing but boxers. I sweatdropped and grinned. The other two laughed._

_That day we went to a neighboring town. There was a festival going on, to commemorate the Kyuubi's defeat. We spent the whole day with me and the Sandaime(not wearing his robes by the way)playing games, while Auron just stood back, watched us and laughed. It was and still is to this day, one of the happiest times of my life. _

_That night we returned to the village and went to the Ichiraku ramen stand. It was great, I remember that the ramen man's daughter made me a cake. They sang "Happy Birthday," and then gave me presents. The people at the stand gave me free ramen coupons, I still have some of them today. Both the Hokage and Auron gave me scrolls. _

_The Third gave me an D-Rank jutsu called Focus. After gathering chakra for a jutsu, it allowed you to give up a fraction of the chakra you were using. This increased the potency of the chakra that remained, allowing you to get a better effect, than had you simply gone on with the jutsu. While useful, this technique was difficult to pull off in actual combat. Needless to say, no matter the fact that the Hokage said it would come in handy for me, I didn't even touch this one until _much_ later on._

_But Auron's was different. It was useful, it was physical and it was one of his trademarks. Using the shinobi's ranking system, I imagine it would have been a C-Rank. The Armor Break. By charging a strike with chakra, be it hand-to-hand or a using a weapon, you can lower a person's pain tolerance. The attack increased the sensitivity of a person's nerves in proportion to the amount of chakra used. At first, I didn't really care for the technique. But that changed later on in the night._

_A drunken villager, who was dumb enough to approach me while in the presence of both the Hokage and Auron, came up to the ramen stand. Apparently, he was trying to urinate on me in the middle of our conversation on the Armor Break. I remember Auron's exact words,"Allow me to demonstrate."_

_Seeing the villager writhing in total agony from a back-handed slap sealed the deal for me. For a while, I spent all of my free time trying to perfect the Armor Break._

--**Flashback End**--

Damn it, I hate it when that happens. Where was I? Oh yeah, I had just delivered a killer Armor Break to that traitor Mizuki. I know he noticed his extra sensitivity when a breeze blew past us. I saw the confused look on his face. "If you ever lay a hand on Iruka... I'LL KILL YOU!" I declared. I was dead serious.

"Please, you couldn't even touch me, demon," Mizuki spat. Well he was in for a surprise.

I put my fingers in a cross shape and yelled- no, screamed, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Suddenly the clearing was filled, covered really, with clones, my clones, my _solid_ clones.

I remembered Mizuki's harsh words, _You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox!_

We charged.

* * *

Focus-Final Fantasy X It made the magic stat stronger, so you can kind of guess how it's going to work in the Narutoverse


	3. Answers

You know what I find strange? In most situations where the Sandaime explains to Naruto about the Kyuubi, he always just says it right off the bat. You'd think he'd be a bit more sensitive about it, wouldn't you?

Oh, and remember: I don't steal, I relocate.

* * *

_**Chapter 3: "I Want Answers, Old Man"**_

I'm not going to lie to you, the fight between me and Mizuki wasn't an epic clash between two titans struggling to go all out, releasing jutsu after jutsu until neither one could move. It was more of a beating, a long, brutal, hundred-on-one beat down made all the more sadistic by the fact that Mizuki had had his sensitivity to pain increased.

But I ask you, can you honestly say he didn't deserve it? No? What's that? You can't, can you?

Oh, and I made genin.

Yeah, bitches.

--

When the Hokage sends you a summons, you answer it.

It's a rule so fundamental to living in Konohagakure that even Naruto knows and abides by it. So, when an eagle-masked ANBU came knocking on his door in the dead of the night spouting off some nonsense about "formalities" and "requests" and "audiences", the words "the Hokage", "wants" and "to see you" managed to slip their way through Naruto's emotionally and mentally exhausted skull to his sleep-deprived brain.

"Is that right, Kenichi?" he asked, tiredly scratching the back of his head.

"Yes," the ANBU replied, pausing, "...shinobi-san."

"Huh?"

Naruto blinked owlishly at the messenger, silently questioning where that had come from. _What's with this 'shinobi' business? _he wondered. _How would they even know? I didn't tell them that I graduated... Wait-what? Oh shit, I didn't tell them that I graduated! _"Yeah, well, guess I better go see what the old man wants," the blond said nervously, eyes darting from side to side.

Naruto realized he was in trouble, big trouble.

He hadn't told any of his ANBU "friends" that he had accidentally become a genin, and he knew to them, the injustice of such an error would far outweigh whatever joy they would, or should really, feel at their little toy's progression. Thank god, though, that it was bird-faced ninja who had stumbled upon him first, as any other member of the black-ops organization would have already stripped him naked and set his ass on fire. Kenichi, at least, had always given him a head start before chasing him down and committing unspeakable acts.

_Naruto cracked his neck, and leaned backwards, preparing to turn around and slam his door shut,Such a nice guy..._

--

After having successfully fooled and caught his friend off guard with a clever application of his newly aquired jutsu, Naruto made his way to and climbed the long stairs of the Hokage's tower with a disposition that spoke of a quiet confidence. He had questions to ask the old geezer, and he was damned sure that the old man had called him there to answer them, or at least, he better have.

As he made his way down the long corridor leading to the Sandaime's office, Naruto took notice of the two unfamiliar chunin standing guard at the door. Their eyes seemed to follow him as he swaggered his way over, but when he reached them, they immediately switched their gazes so that they were instead staring down the long hall.

"You guys the night-guard?" he asked them innocently. "Nice to meet you."

Apart from their previous stares, the two chunin acted otherwise impartial to his presence, if a bit wary. After all, it was only a few hours ago that the Hokage had called a Code 39 on his ass, and the circumstances involving the the dismissal of the search had to have been sketchy at best, Naruto couldn't blame them for staring him down. But unlike the other guards that he had met in his many visits to the Hokage's office, Naruto could place neither name nor memory to these two, and really had nothing else to say to them.

"So, can I just walk right in or what?"

The guard on the right nodded once, stepping aside so as to allow the new genin access to the door handle. Naruto almost sighed in exasperation, "Great talk, fellas. We should do this again sometime, go out for a drink or whatever the hell it is you people do." Shaking his head, he stepped into the room.

Closing the door behind him, Naruto saw the old man sitting at his desk, idly tracing the kanji for fire on his hat, which was resting on the table."Please, take a seat, Naruto-kun," he asked, quietly, not lifting his eyes from his headgear. Naruto obeyed and sat down in the chair opposite the Hokage, opting not to look at the man himself, and instead staring at the hat he had spent years dreaming of. They sat like that, Sarutobi attempting to organize his thoughts and Naruto just trying not to move, for nearly an hour.

"Twelve years ago," the Hokage began, suddenly breaking the silence that had enveloped the room, "the Kyuubi no Kitsune, a demon often hailed as **the** most powerful entity in recorded history, attacked our village. It had ravaged the countryside for months prior, destroying small communities and burning entire farms, all without our knowledge. Apparently, its wrath had been so harsh, and its destruction so complete, that not a single soul had ever been left alive to speak of its terrible deeds, and so, we went on with our lives, uninformed and unaware of the calamity to come."

He paused and took a breath.

"Four days before the Kyuubi arrived in Konoha, the Yondaime Hokage received a strange message from one of our outposts in southern Fire Country. It spoke of a terrifying beast that had suddenly appeared on the horizon, and then, just as suddenly as it had come, disappeared. Investigators were sent to check it out, but nothing could be found within a mile radius of the guard station, no footprints, no destruction, no monsters. So, we sent the lookouts home for some rest, put it on our list of things to keep an eye on, and we went on with our lives."

"Hold on," Naruto interrupted, his voice strangely low and hoarse, "how could you _miss _the Kyuubi? Isn't it like a million feet tall?"

The Hokage took another pause.

"They say that the nine-tailed demon's power is so great that even the very space around it is forced to submit to its will." The Sandaime paused yet again, as if he was carefully mulling over how to say this next part. "They are right. It is- or was, actually- impossible to hear, feel, smell, or even _see_ the demon unless you were standing within a kilometer of it, a lesson we would not learn until it was far too late to do us any good. The specifics are rather complex, so I won't bother going into them, but the point is this: the Kyuubi caught us truly and completely off-guard, and many considered this to be its first true crime."

Naruto stared, waiting.

"Eighty-four hours later, it attacked."

Sarutobi sighed deeply before moving on. "I'm sure you've heard the stories, of how its very aura served to drive men insane, of how absolutely any ninja that was wounded by any of its attacks died, and, obviously, the story of just why we hold a memorial service on that day of all the days that we should mourn those lost in combat. Truly, that demon..." the old man trailed off. "There was nothing we could do to stop it, and I think that that was its second crime, the fact that we were powerless in the face of a creature that we dared to call monster. It was a terrible sight to see, an enormous demon bearing nine tails of death and destruction ravaging our homes and our families. No matter what we did, no matter what we tried, no matter how hard we fought, it could not be stopped."

The Hokage took another breath and turned to look at the portrait of the Yondaime Hokage on the wall. "That is... until Yondaime-sama discovered a centuries old jutsu, one capable of stopping even the most powerful demon in the world, a jutsu unique in that it called upon the power of a true god, a god of death."

Watching the blond-haired boy out of the corner of his eyes, he continued, "There were only two conditions that had to be met in order for it to succeed: a human sacrifice and..." at this, the Sandaime turned and swiveled his chair around to look Naruto in the eye, "and a vessel, something with which we could keep the demon's power at bay."

Sitting back, the Third went on, "The Yondaime came to the conclusion that no inanimate object would suffice for holding back the massive energies that the fox wielded, and that no adult body would be able to adapt to the demon's presence. Thus, we were left with only one option: to somehow find a living, breathing creature whose soul the Kyuubi could not rape and defile on its way in. In short, Naruto, a newborn child, you. "

Here Naruto spoke again, his voice just as deep and as raspy as it had been before,"But why then? Why me? I couldn't have been the only one born that day."

The Third took a deep breath, he knew the answer and he knew he could not give it. It was the same as when Auron had asked all those years ago, a question that was yet destined to be without an answer. "There _is _a reason Naruto-kun, and a great one, you were not a name picked out of a hat," the Hokage answered. "But that reason cannot be revealed, cannot become known, not to you, not to anyone, or at least... not until you're older, and ready for the things to come. There are people out there, Naruto, far greater than you can possible imagine, people that would just as soon have your head on a platter as say hello."

Naruto looked up, his face suddenly amused.

"Oh? What's that? People who would have my head on a platter? That's your big deterrent? That people would want me dead? An- And what's this about older? When I'm older? When I asked you all those years ago why everyone seemed to hate me, you said to wait until I was older. When everyone else got presents on their birthdays, and I got beatings, you said that I should wait until I was older. When other kids got to play with each other, and I was told to never to go near them, and I asked you why the adults wouldn't let join in, you said to wait until I was _older_. When exactly is _older_, _Lord Hokage_?" Naruto's voice sounded high pitched and crazed, almost hysterical, and he seemed to be losing control of himself. "When exactly were you intending on letting me in on this little secret, anyway? Hmmmm? In ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Or were just going to let me go on, oblivious as to why everyone wanted me dead for the rest of my life? Hmmmm? Well, _Hokage-sama,_ my_ liege_?" The blond's eyes flashed blood-red.

You'd think that that was it, that he had let it all out, that he was Naruto, and that he couldn't hold a grudge for long.

Psyche.

"Oh! I know, you were hoping to keep it a secret until you kicked the bucket. That way, when the new Hokage was chosen, and they started sending me on suicide missions and off to fight wars single-handedly, I'd be totally, fuckingly, CONFUSED!"

"I'm sorry."

The Third's eyes seemed to be full of genuine sadness as he spoke those words, and a single, solitary tear slipped with them down his cheek. But rather than sate Naruto's rage, this attempt at appeasement only served to give fuel to the flames of his anger.

"Sorry? SORRY!?"

At the Sandaime's moment of uncharacteristic regret, something awoke within Naruto, something old and ancient, something vicious, something angry. Something that had been sleeping for three years. The boy seemed to explode as hatred and chakra began to lash out of his body, and the entire atmosphere of the room began to change. He didn't seem to want to let up, especially after that sign of weakness. In fact, it only seemed to enrage him further that this old man, that his prey, would be weak_,_ would be _crying, _when he wanted to unleash his rage upon him.

So Naruto did the most logical thing for him at the moment, he grabbed the closest thing at hand, namely a scroll on the wall, and threw it out the window. This gained no reaction from the Hokage, so he picked up a globe from the corner of the room and smashed it against the wall. There was also an antique teapot in that section of the office, so that too was crushed between fist and wood. Naruto wanted a response, any response, be it from Sarutobi or the ANBU he _knew _were hidden somewhere. That there wasn't, signified to him that they didn't see him as a threat, that they didn't quite understand who they were fucking with. Naruto spotted a painting of a magnificent castle that looked to be quite old, it was obviously a memento of Sarutobi's younger days as it was surrounded by various weapons, worn down by age, and a picture of his genin team. The blond picked up a small spear that was on a shelf nearby and threw it at the painting, destroying it beyond repair.

He was ready to continue his destruction of the Hokage's room when he was interrupted by the ninja himself, "By all means continue destroying my possessions, I daresay I have too many."

Naruto stared at the man before him, unable to understand why his acts of of petty anger were not able to get under the old man's skin. And it was as that thought passed through his mind, that he realized what he was doing and how he was acting.

The Hokage got up and walked over to Naruto, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. He was unsurprised to find that Naruto's skin was white hot, and seemed to be boiling.

"My-my parents," the young genin's voice had returned to normal, but it was still somewhat dejected, "you know who they are, don't you?"

"I do," the Hokage replied, his voice laced with regret.

"Who are they?" Naruto questioned.

The old man's voice sounded so sad as he answered, "I cannot tell you."

Surprisingly, this time Naruto remained calm. "Why not?" he asked evenly/

"The identity of your parents and the reason why the Fourth chose you, are one in the same," the Third said, taking a deep breath. "Naruto, I had fully intended to reveal to you all your secrets once you had turned sixteen, and by then, I had hoped you would be ready both physically and mentally for the knowledge of your parents' identities."

"Physically?" the boy asked, still refusing to meet Sarutobi's eyes.

The Hokage nodded.

"Even if you had not had the Kyuubi sealed within you, you would still have many enemies, my boy. Your parents were ninjas, great ninjas, and over the course of their careers, they met many who would seek to harm them, your father in particular. Had that knowledge become public, you would be in constant danger."

Naruto's voice was uncharacteristically hollow as he spoke, "You didn't have to make it public, don't, just tell _me_." The Hokage knew how much the child was hurting, but the truth could not be revealed to him, not yet.

Naruto spoke up once again, "That day, three years ago, when I... when Auron died, what was that?"

The Hokage took another deep breath and walked back to his chair, "I was not there that day, but I felt it, and I read reports of the incident. You apparently tapped into the demon's chakra due to extreme emotional distress and gave into its daemonic instincts."

The boy's eyes became fearful as he contemplated that sentence. "Am I going to become it?" he asked, very much afraid of the implications.

"Regardless of the blood lust you exhibited that day, Naruto, you still managed to discern friend from foe. You forget, there were ANBU in that crowd of fiends, and not a single one of them was harmed, not a single one. You demonstrated control over yourself, and over your body, and that is good enough for me. But if you require more proof, look no further than your own eyes. You still have the eyes of someone who desperately does not want to be the bad guy, the eyes of someone who's soul has yet remained untouched by corruptness and villainy. You are not now, nor have you ever been, a being of evil.

"I am old, Naruto, very old, and I have seen many things, demons among them. You are no demon, no demon-spawn, you are Uzumaki Naruto, and while life still sits in these weary bones, I will make damn sure that it stays that way."

With that, the two of them sat there in that room, for hours more, just waiting in the silence. In the quiet, Naruto began to think back, recalling the sphere Auron had given him, and the words recorded within it.

--Flashback--

_The screen crackled and a few white lines passed by before Auron came into view. "Hey kid, if your watching this, I'm dead. I hope I told you about the fiends and how they would likely be hunting you next. If I didn't, surprise. I feel it is imperative that you understand my history and why exactly they wanted my head on a stick, in order for you to one day permanently put an end to it._

_"I do not belong to this world, I came from a world called Spira..." The sphere told me everything, about Spira, about Sin, about his friends with whom he had managed to save Spira from the never-ending 'spiral of death.' He talked about the aeons, the fayth and Yevon. Everything. I remember being enraptured by his tale for the hours it took to tell it, and being impressed by the things they managed to do. But then the sphere got around to how he ended up in this world._

_"The Farplane wasn't so bad, it was not... unpleasant__. I do not understand why people make such a big fuss about death. Regardless, one day, or rather one tiny module of the time that is infinity, everything that I had come to recognize disappeared. The swirling lights of the Land of the Dead, the near-euphoric feeling of peace, the endless quiet that could never be broken, it all just... went away. Then, there was darkness. And then the darkness was gone, too. _

_"I awoke in a barely lit room, all but alone save for one man who watched me with piercing eyes. The walls of that place stood uneven and rough, inscribed with unrecognizable runes glowing with mystical light. The strange symbols carved on the walls were the only source of illumination in the room, and I could see that the pattern they formed came together into a circle in which I lay. But that did not hold my attention for long, only the man could do that._

_"I was caught off-guard by his blue hair, as I recognized the color and shade from the hair of another man whom I've told you about, Seymour. But I'm almost positive there is no connection, Seymour's eyes had been gray and dark with sorrow, this man's eyes were orange and glowing with excitement.  
_

_"The man spoke up, telling me that he was offering me a deal. He told me that he'd 'gifted me with the life that I had lost,' and that all he wanted in return was my undying loyalty. __But I had become... content with my death. So, I told him quite politely that I was not interested. He became enraged by this and attempted to kill me. I was not interested in being gutted, so I broke his arms and left the small cave we were in. I had been traveling for scarcely an hour before I came across the Leaf and, by proxy, you._

_"Naruto, I don't know the method by which he summoned me to this world, but apparently it left a trail. There is no other way that the fiends could have found me, I believe that they followed this trail left behind, and recognized that I was of their world. Fiends are the leftover souls of the unsent, and its in their nature to attack and destroy. _

_"I was never one for theorizing about the state of universes, but I think that by pledging my guardianship to you, I have somehow made you a partisan to the rules of my world. Though I imagine that your scent will be weak and hard to follow, and it will be years still until you come across a fiend again, they will come for you. It was their instinct to find me, and it was their instinct to hurt me, so it will be their instinct to hurt you, be ready. Incidentally, in my room there is a large trunk, filled with spheres detailing techniques that may interest you, if not now, then in years to come. It also has a bestiary of sorts, and I wish for you to use it to cut down any fiends that cross your path. _

_"And Naruto... for all the things that will come to pass... I'm sorry." _

--Flashback End--

"Old man?" The Hokage's eyes turned towards Naruto."Do you think that Auron would care, if he knew?"

"He didn't know, but he had an inkling," Sarutobi answered truthfully.

"How!?" Naruto asked, sitting up. The answer the Sandaime had given him had come unexpectedly.

"He told me once that he sensed something dark within you, and that he had felt it before. I told him not to dwell on it, and he didn't, just like that. I don't think he was the kind of man who would be unable to see you for what you really are, Naruto." The Hokage's eyes drifted to the clock in his office, noticing the time for the first time. "Well my boy, I think you should be getting home about now, it _is _rather late."

Naruto sighed and stood up at the old man's words. "Good night then," he said rather stiffly, and walked to the door.

Sarutobi watched him carefully as he left the room, silently wondering if Naruto had done what he had done on purpose. Eventually, long after the boy had left, the Hokage looked out his window and smiled.

Only then did he reply to Naruto, "Good night."

* * *

Yes, that is a 'borrowed' (and now somewhat modified) scene from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Yes, that was intentional. Yes, yes, I _know_. Wanna fight about it? 'Cause I'll throw down.


	4. Teamwork

**_Chapter 4: Teamwork: Squad 7's Bell Test_**

It was really late in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Really, really late, and Uzumaki Naruto was on his way home.

Naruto loved the dark. The dark was his only real reprieve from hatred. While he didn't have perfect vision, he could see a lot better without light than most people, and so darkness became his ally in escaping when he needed to escape.

But most of that doesn't matter, not right now. Instead, we'll focus on the fact that he had better night vision than most. His ability to see in the dark was a true blessing that night, because, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a scroll. It was just sitting there, on top of a bush, like it was saying 'look at me, I'm on a bush, I must be important.' It seemed to Naruto that it had fallen out of the sky, or rather, that was until he looked up.

_Weird..._

The scroll's position aligned perfectly with the Hokage's window, and it was obvious that it was the one he had thrown out of said window during his temper tantrum. He thought it had looked familiar. _I wonder what's in it, _he thought to himself. Naruto being... well, Naruto, couldn't resist the chance to have a look at another one of the Hokage's scrolls.

_"Tobidougu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Projectile Shadow Clone Jutsu)"_

It sounded... strong. If the Shadow Clone Jutsu had helped him to pulverize that _traitor, _ who was probably ten times stronger than him, who knows what this new one could do. He read on.

_"This jutsu allows the user to multiply the amount of projectiles he has thrown in direct proportion to the amount of chakra placed into the technique." _

"Huh?"

_"Furthermore, this jutsu is most commonly used in conjunction with shuriken. So much so that the combination has been dubbed Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."_

_So... I can multiply my shuriken? That would be awesome!_ Just then, Naruto noticed one last sentence before the instructions on the jutsu.

_"This jutsu is a precursor to the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, and it is highly recommended that this technique be mastered before even attempting to create a human shadow clone_."

Naruto found himself giddy, _if the Shadow Clone Jutsu is supposed to be harder than this one, then this will be easy!_

And you know what? He was right...

--

Too right.

It was the day after the graduation exams and Naruto had three days to kill before he had to report to the academy for Iruka's graduation speech. Why they couldn't have just had it at the graduation exam was beyond him, but then the little voice in his head had just said, _**'because then you would have missed it.'**_ He was inclined to agree. This was obviously a sign that the gods had meant for him to become genin, and then eventually Hokage.

With that riddle solved, it was time to return to the problem at hand: the Tobidougu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. He was in the training field of his home, the home that he and Auron had once shared, and he was trying out his newest jutsu. The first time he had attempted it, he had thrown one shuriken and and ended up creating two clones, which he discovered disappeared after they hit something. On the second try, Naruto had again thrown one shuriken, but had created four clones.

While he had actually done the jutsu, the boy had expected more from a scroll in the Hokage's office. _Wait a minute, _he thought, mentally smacking himself, _the scroll said 'in proportion to the amount of chakra...' Gah! I'm an idiot, I just need to pump more chakra into the jutsu!  
_

With this idea in mind, Naruto poured as much chakra as he could into the technique on his third try. Since he wasn't been as angry as he had been during the fight in the forest, his spiritual energy, and therefore his chakra output, wasn't as high, but it takes a lot less chakra to create a shuriken than it does to make an actual person. The result: he_ shredded_ trees. The force of Naruto's extra chakra had literally _coated _his shuriken in power, and that may have done most of the damage, but the shear amount of throwing stars he had produced was still incredible to see. To his eyes, they must have numbered in the thousands.

The only problem was that the boy was tired, dead tired. That would be cumbersome in the field, and would have to be fixed. _On second thought, _Naruto realized, having come out of his daze,_ I don't need that many shuriken to take someone down_,_ I'll just use less chakra_.

The blond would go on to spend the next two days training, trying to get a feel for both the Projectile Shadow Clone and the regular Shadow Clone Jutsus, until he had both techniques mastered to the point where he could control the amount of replications he got. He usually only missed the target amount by two or three, unless he was aiming really low, in which case he got it exactly right, or really high, where he totally messed up. All things considered, though, Naruto felt this to be sufficient, as it wasn't like he was going to be facing anyone that strong anyway.

The fact that he was on his back and unable to move also had something to do with it.

Naruto was actually quite surprised at the situation. Throughout the entire two days he had not had to deal with a single cynical thought. In fact, he felt more complete than ever. He finally understood why he was hated, and why he was shunned.

It was funny though, he always thought that he would be sickened by himself, that the severity of his crime would leave him with a deep sense of self-loathing. But he had done nothing wrong. He had been blamed for something that wasn't his fault, and so a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

_And,_ to add to it all, Naruto had outwitted a Hokage, stolen a forbidden scroll, exposed a traitor and been made a genin. He was happy, which was a rarity in and of itself. For the first time in three years, Naruto felt like it was truly a beautiful day.

--

It was my last day at the academy, and I couldn't have been any prouder. I sat in my seat for the final time and was enjoying my somewhat delirious happiness, when I was interrupted.

Damn that Shikamaru.

No, wait, that's not right. He _was _trying to be helpful. I guess my passing is a real shock to a lot of people, I did _fail_ after all.

I had _politely _corrected Shikamaru and been about to returned to my seat when the door erupted in a flurry of sound. Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino. Uchiha Sasuke's number one fangirls, and self-proclaimed future Mrs. Uchiha-san's. Not that they'd share of course, it wasn't in their nature, and God's not _that _much of a dick.

Sakura rushed to Sasuke who was, as always, a seat away from me. For the record, I have no idea what Sakura sees in him, I am a _much _better choice. She rushed over and pushed me out of the way to get to Mr. I-was-touched-as-a-child Uchiha-san.(mental sigh) She'll come around someday.

--

Three hours, THREE DAMN HOURS!! OUR SENSEI KEPT US WAITING FOR THREE HOURS!! I'LL KICK HIS ASS!!_** CHA!**_

--

Whoever this idiot is, keeping an Uchiha waiting, he'll be sorry.

--

When Hatake Kakashi walked into the classroom, the sight that met his eyes was kinda unexpected. Pinky looked... giggly? The Dark Prince was amused, and Blondie seemed... smug. Kakashi tilted his head to the side, noticing he couldn't let go of the door. His glove was glued to it. He ripped a section of the door off effortlessly, causing the eyes of the soon-to-be-not genin to widen considerably. Kakashi slowly and meticulously ripped the plaster off his glove, leaving no evidence that anything had ever been glued there. He lifted the same hand to his chin and paused, he took a moment to watch his 'students,'

"How should I put this? My first impression of you guys is... I hate you."

_No way..._

_No damn way, that was ninja glue..._

_No way...__**CHA!**_

_**--**_

"Let's see, why don't you introduce yourselves?"

Pinky interrupted, "Introduce ourselves? What should we say?"

Kakashi replied, "What you like, dislike, your dreams, your hobbies. Something like that."

This time Blondie spoke up,"Why don't you start, sensei? You know, show us how it's done."

The masked ninja faked surprise. "Me? Hmmmm... I'm Hatake Kakashi. I don't care to tell you my likes and dislikes. My dreams? Never really thought about it. My hobbies include partaking in things I like and trying to achieve my goal..."

"So all we learned was his name..." Sakura whispered, turning to her teammates.

"Your grasp of the obvious astounds me," Naruto deadpanned, staring at the girl. A moment later he gasped, realizing what he had just said to his crush. It was the kind of answer he would have given to anyone but Sakura. He winced.

"SHUT UP NARUTO!!" Sakura screamed.

"Pinky, since you're so eager, why don't you start?" Kakashi said, staring at the trio lazily.

Sakura _didn't_ have the sense to look ashamed."Well(giggle), my name is Haruno Sakura. I like (giggle), my hobbies are (giggle), my dream is to (giggle)."

"And what do you hate?" Kakashi asked, dreading the reply.

"Naruto." She replied evenly.

_Perfect, just what I needed. _"Okay, Blondie, you're up."

Naruto had to think about his answer. Just days ago, it would have been easy to simply reply with a completely ramen and Hokage based answer, but now he had to reevaluate his priorities. He knew how this Kakashi probably felt about these introductions: They were unimportant, a simple formality, he wasn't expecting a full blown character analysis, just something to allow him into the head of the three pre-teens. But still, Naruto hoped to avoid any sort of mistrust between him and his sensei so early in their relationship, what with the revelation a few nights ago.

Naruto groaned in his head. _It shouldn't be this difficult_, he thought. The man was expecting a child's answer, so he should just give a child's answer.

Naruto blinked a few times to return to reality, where he discovered that he had been sitting there for about a minute. He scratched the back of his head and grinned. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto..." Naruto paused, "I like ramen and jutsu..." Here he stopped again thinking about what he was about to say, "My hobbies are eating ramen and learning new jutsu."

_No pranks? _Kakashi thought.

"My dream is to become Hokage. I hate..." Naruto stopped once again, this is what he was confused about. What _did _he hate? Hate was so powerful, he had to choose his answer very carefully. If he said that he hated the villagers, would it mean that he did in fact, _hate_ the villagers? And therefore would he in turn, grow to actually hate the _village_? That wasn't a path that he wanted to go down. He would have to say something else, something that wouldn't bring harm to anyone. And who better for a scapegoat than the one who could not be touched, either in life, or, more importantly, in death.

Naruto nodded once and crossed his arms, "I hate the Fourth Hokage."

Kakashi narrowed his one visible eye.

--

Remember how Naruto said that all the ANBU were on his side? Well, that wasn't completely true. There was one man who managed to get away with hating him, simply because he was the best. Hatake Kakashi was nearly unbeatable, claiming the title third strongest of all the Leaf's active ninja. There were only a handful of people who could hope to go toe-to-toe with him, and most of them them were no longer in the village, so Hatake Kakashi was allowed, begrudgingly, but allowed, to keep his own opinion of the Kyuubi's container.

But the copy-cat was usually not the kind of guy to let preconceptions and prejudices get in the way of his work. He had intended to start off his test with complete neutrality towards all his charges. But insulting his sensei was on a list of things that got you killed. His Chidori could cut through almost anything, and Uzumaki Naruto was certainly no lightning bolt.

"What's wrong with you, you idiot?! The Fourth Hokage was a hero!" Sakura screeched. The Uchiha, on the other hand, chose to remain silent. There was something in the way that Naruto had said it, that intrigued him. He didn't know what, but something seemed... off.

"Next," Kakashi said, having brought himself under control.

Sasuke began to speak, "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I hate a lot of things and I don't particularly like anything. What I have is not a dream, because I _will _make it a reality, I'm going to restore my clan and kill a certain someone."

_As I thought..._ "Okay, you three all have unique personalities, I like that." Kakashi paused. "So guys, we're gonna go on a little mission tomorrow."

"What kind of mission, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Something the four of us can do together," Kakashi replied.

No one said anything for a while, until Sasuke spoke up,"Well, what is it?"

"Survival training."

"But why?" this time it was Sakura who spoke first. "We had training at the academy."

"This is no ordinary training." Kakashi said.

"What kind of training is it then?" Naruto asked. Kakashi began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Sakura inquired.

"It's just that, when I say this, you guys are gonna be surprised." Naruto and Sakura looked confused, while Sasuke just seemed annoyed. "Out of the 27 graduates, only 9 of them will become genin. The other 18, will be sent back to the academy. So... in other words this test is very difficult, with a failure rate of 66."

The three graduates had varying looks of shock, from Sasuke's indifference to Naruto's full-blown, ''hell no!' face. Kakashi began to laugh again, "See? You guys _are_ surprised!"

"Hey! What the hell was the final exam for, then?!" Naruto yelled, enraged that after everything he did, he _still_ might not become a genin.

"That thing? It was used to weed out those who had no chance of making it as ninja."

"What?!"

"Anyway, I'm going to hold the test at the training ground tomorrow. Bring your ninja gear and meet me at 5 A.M.!" Kakashi turned around and began to walk away, when he stopped and added as an afterthought, "Oh yeah, and don't eat breakfast... you'll throw up if you do."

--

"Hi guys."

"You're late!"

"Well you see, as I was on my way here I saw this great, big glowing orb in the sky. As I stared at it, I began to go blind, so, fearing an enemy attack, I..." Kakashi stopped, noticing the look on the faces of the genin hopefuls. "Ahem, let's get started then." Kakashi took out an alarm clock. "Alarm set to noon. Alright kiddies, your goal is to get these bells," he said jingling them. "If you can't, no lunch, and I tie you up and eat yours right in front of you." They couldn't see it, but they could tell he had a psychotic grin under that mask.

"But wait," Sakura said, "Why are there only two bells?"

"Good observation, Sakura. Since there are only two bells, at least one of you will get tied to the log... and therefore fail. But at the same time, it could be all three of you. Quite an ingenious test, eh? Oh, and by the way, unless you come at me with the intent to kill, you'll never get a bell."

Sakura looked as if she wanted to say something, but Naruto said it first, "That's dangerous! You could get hurt!"

"Generally speaking," Kakashi replied, "those who have no skills, complain the most. I generally ignore the one with the lowest grades." Kakashi turned around, putting his back to the three graduates. "We will begin when I say start." Naruto didn't take too kindly to being insulted and then brushed off, it was usually one or the other. In a fit of rage, he threw a shuriken as hard as he could at Kakashi's back. The silver-haired shinobi disappeared, as did the shuriken. They both reappeared, Kakashi behind Naruto, holding the shuriken to the vessel's neck, which was kind of strange, seeing as the shuriken wasn't meant for close quarters.

"Don't be so hasty, I didn't say 'start'." Kakashi said calmly. He slipped the shuriken into Naruto's hand and let him go. "But you _were_ trying to kill me, nice work." He hmm'ed and then chuckled, "It's funny, I think I'm actually starting to like you three." He began to walk away, "Let's begin, shall we?" He looked back, "Ready? Start!"

The three vanished into the woods.

--

Naruto sat in a tree observing the masked ninja from a distance. _Okay, I can blitz him with the Tobidougu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu... No, he's too fast, no way I can catch him coming from only one direction. But if my shadow clones did it too... _Can_ my clones do jutsu? _Naruto created a clone. "Hey," he whispered, "transform." The clone nodded and used the _Henge no Jutsu _to change into Kakashi._ Okay, that's a go._

Kakashi noticed the chakra spike, but remained at rest. He was curious of the blond-haired ninja's plan.

_Alright then, I'll just surround him and hit him with more shuriken than he can count. But what if he still gets away? Arrgh, if only I had a bit more variety in my arsenal, this would be a piece of cake._ _C'mon Naruto think! No time for if only's, so if he gets away... I'll dogpile him with clones, then launch more shuriken once he's pin down. Alright! Let's do this._

With a single handsign, Naruto created about a hundred clones. They surrounded a clearing in the forest. One Naruto returned to the training grounds and threw four shuriken at Kakashi, who was by the river reading his book. Kakashi suspected a trap, but went along with it anyway. After all, Naruto was the only one actually doing anything and he was bored. He dodged the shuriken and gave chase to the ninja-to-be.

Naruto, the real Naruto, was sitting in a tree, waiting for his clone to return with his sensei. He was going over the "plan," if you could call it that, in his head, trying to come up with some kind of backup. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the voice in his head chose that exact moment to speak up. _**How crude..."**_

Naruto, unwilling to deal with his "little friend," told the voice to shut up.

_**"Well that's hardly a nice thing to say, and here I am, trying to help you out with your trap. I'm just saying, the Shadow Clone Jutsu is hardly genin-level."**_

_A ninja_ _must take advantage of everything he has at his disposal,_ Naruto lectured in his mind. He was quite irritated, the voice usually had something intelligent to say, if it didn't, he had no use for it.

_**Yeah, but you weren't expected to have this at your disposal.**_

_Which is why I'll be able to catch him off-guard._

_**Idiot! Would you just think for once in your life?! You! You... You know what? Just listen up: Cyclops said that nine graduates would become genin, right? If two was the maximum amount of people who could pass a test, and the maximum amount passed every test, it would be impossible to get a total of nine. But if the entire team was able to pass, that means there would be three full squads.**_

_So, for all of us to pass... there has to be a secondary objective! Something other than the bells!_

_**Way to go dumbass. Now, you needed to play the numbers game in order to win, right. **_Naruto physically nodded. _**But you obviously weren't supposed to multiply yourself. **_

_Yeah..._

_**Weren't you were the one who said you wish you had more **__**variety?**_

_What are you getting a-_

--_**Flashback**_--

_I was sitting in the middle of the training ground. Auron was getting ready to go chase down some thugs who had been seen around the walls of the Leaf. He was going to be traveling with some ninja who were going to assist him. I was curious about that, so I asked him,"Why are you going with those guys? I bet you could take them all by yourself!"  
_

_"Only a fool rushes into battle without making all the necessary preparations to ensure a safe return. It is best to have allies whom you can count on." He looked up at the sky, then. He seemed to be remembering something._

_"Imagine you are in a battle, and the one you are fighting possesses incredible speed, and great defenses as well."_

_"Okay..." I said uncertainly.  
_

_"You are the only one one who is strong enough to do any considerable damage to him."_

_"Well, obviously, I'm great!"_

_"But you are also too slow to land a hit on him."_

_"No way!"_

_Auron sighed then. "Generally, Naruto, if you are stronger than everyone else, you are going to be slower than them, too. Muscle weighs you down."_

_"That sucks!"_

_Another sigh. "How are you going to attack your opponent, if you are not fast enough?"_

_I remember scrunching my face up in concentration then, "I'll throw shuriken at him!"_

_"And if you do not have any shuriken?" Before I could think about it any more, he Auron went on, "You have someone else, an ally who_ is_ fast enough to hit him, slow him down. You let them damage the enemy enough so that you can move in for the finishing blow. They might even have a spe- jutsu, I mean, that can help you move faster."_

_"I guess..."  
_

_Auron stopped and picked up his coat from off the ground. He began to walk away. "Tidus, Yuna, Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri and Rikku," he said.  
_

_"What?"_

_"They were my... team." _

--_**Flashback** **End**_--

_Team... Sasuke and Sakura!! _

_**Ding, ding, ding. Get the young lady a prize.**_

_But they'll never work with me..._

_**In order to pass, they don't have to help you. You just have to make the Cyclops **_**think**_** they're helping you. **_

_Right..._

_**Now go, idiot, you don't have time to waste.**_

Naruto quickly added a few extra steps to his plan. Kakashi appeared in the clearing and his clone disappeared in a puff of smoke, after which he gave the signal and his clones attacked.

--

When I came up with the idea, I had expected a lot of shuriken, what I got, was a "Great Shuriken Barrage." From all directions, I saw the throwing stars all flying towards the general vicinity of one Hatake Kakashi. There was no way he could escape...

Strike that, there was one way he could escape, Kawarimi. Damn.

I had the clones rush out in an attempt to simply outnumber him. Two of them transformed into Sasuke and Sakura. They pelted shuriken and kunai at Kakashi, just enough so he knew they were there. When he did notice them, I thought his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.

I had another clone, in disguise as Sasuke try and grab a bell. The jounin noticed him and backhanded him. The clone flew back and exploded in a puff of smoke.

I had previously ordered one clone to transform into a rock, then I had another clone drop him near Kakashi. So as Kakashi was preoccupied with the Sasuke Shadow Clone, I had the rock transform again, this time into Sakura. It grabbed the bells, but by the time Kakashi noticed, it was too late. I had the clones destroy themselves for a mass smokescreen. What I didn't expect, though, was the mass of memories from the clones, which led to me passing out.

--

When Naruto awoke, he was tied to a log, and Sasuke and Sakura were sitting next to him, to his right and left, respectively. Kakashi stood in front of them, "I really thought you guys had what it took. Only Naruto managed to get a bell, and he lost it. Pathetic."

"But sensei-" Sakura was cut off.

"No buts. Not one of you figured out, or acted according to, the true purpose of this test. It never even crossed your mind." Kakashi lectured.

Sakura spoke again, "What are you talking about?"

"Why do you think new genin are divided into teams of three?" Kakashi said, his temper rising. He always found himself angry at this part, it brought up painful memories. "Did you think about that for one moment? It's so simple, so basic, how could you-"

"Teamwork." This time it was Naruto who cut off Kakashi.

"What?" Kakashi's head swiveled around so fast it looked like it was going to fly off.

"The purpose of this test was to ascertain whether or not we could or would act as a team. You purposely pitted us against each other, to see if we would put the squad ahead of ourselves. " Naruto droned out monotonously.

_I thought it was just a distraction technique. He really did figure it out..._ "Well, why didn't you try and actually get Sasuke's and Sakura's help?" Kakashi asked.

"Sasuke's too proud to accept my help, and Sakura wouldn't do anything Sasuke wouldn't. Asking them for help would have just been a waste of time, time I didn't have." Naruto took a deep breath, which was made difficult by his restraints. "I had hoped that if you saw us working together, we'd be able to pass." Sasuke and Sakura put their heads down, showing some embarrassment for once.

"You know, Naruto," Kakashi said grinning. He couldn't see it, but Naruto could tell he was grinning. _This kid... _"I was going to pass you all, until you dispelled all your clones. When I noticed that no one was left after you fainted, I realized what you did. Maybe you should have given your teammates a chance."

Kakashi suddenly became solemn. "After all, those who don't obey the rules are scum, but those that abandon their friends... are worse than scum." The jounin walked over to a stone with many words carved into it.

"Look at this," he said, "the names engraved upon this stone. All of these are names of people who are praised as heroes within our village." The three failures remained silent. "But these people, they're not normal heroes. They're all... KIA."

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto grew increasingly silent, as if they dared not to disturb the memory of those ninja. KIA... Every true shinobi knew what that meant.

Kakashi continued, "This is a cenotaph, a memorial stone. The names of my closest friends are engraved here." Kakashi stopped, as if he was remembering something. He let his hand drift over the many names carved into the stone. He spoke up again, having come to a decision. "Alright, I'm going to give you guys one more chance. But it's going to be more difficult, you're going to have three hours. Eat lunch now, but Naruto doesn't get any because of that stunt he tried to pull. _I'm_ the law here, got it?"

--

There was a giant explosion of smoke, Kakashi appeared from within it. "You three!" The three ninja wannabe's flinched at the exhibition of power. "You three broke the rules, you disobeyed my laws! Are you prepared for the consequences?!" The skies darkened and storm clouds began to gather. "Any last words?"

The three shinobi-to-be's stared up at him defiantly.

Sakura began," You said that the three of us,"

Sasuke continued," that the three of us were a team,"

Naruto added on," but you were wrong, we're more than a team,"

"The three of us are one!"_**"Cha!" "Hn!" "HELL YEAH!"**_

"Ha! Ha ha ha!" Kakashi began to laugh uncontrollably.

"What's so funny!?" Naruto demanded.

"It's just that, when I say this, you guys are gonna be surprised."

"What!?" Sakura yelled.

"You... Pass!"

"See, you _are _surprised!"

* * *


	5. Journey to the Land of Waves

I have decided on a jutsu system: When called out as an attack the jutsu will be **_bolded and italicized, _**and said in Japanese. I will then rewrite it in the English translation of my choice. That is all.

* * *

_**Chapter 5: Journey to the Land of Waves: Two Brothers and the Demon of the Bloody Mist**_

I hate D-Ranked missions.

They suck.

They do next to nothing for my ninja skills and the pay isn't that great either. The money problem isn't all that apparent, 'cause I have savings. It's the ninja thing that I'm hung up about. Kakashi isn't into the whole training thing.

I've come to the conclusion that most genin teams meet at seven o'clock. From seven to eleven, I assume that they train together, doing ninja things. Then from eleven to whenever their sensei deems the day 'over,' they do missions. The thing about my team is, Kakashi shows up around eleven, effectively eliminating our would-be training time, we spend about an hour a day learning team formations. I get teamwork is important, but we need our individual skills, too.

I suppose that those tedious D-Ranked missions would be a bit more tolerable if I actually learned something new every day, but I don't. My entire arsenal consists of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, the Tobidougou Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, Armor Break and a seriously watered-down version of Focus, the jutsu the old man gave me for my eighth birthday.

Lately, I've been trying to understand a different technique that Auron left behind, called the Power Break. It's a technique that's more suited to lengthy battles. It's supposed to break down muscles, as well as other tissue, along the entire body, weakening the enemies punches and slowing them down. The instructions said that it would be best if I practiced on trees until a point where, after a couple of hits, the tree collapses under its own weight. I've managed to scratch the bark, but I'm supposed to be attacking from the inside, not the outside. I don't understand the theory necessary to master this technique.

What I need is a teacher, a guide, a... a... a _sensei. _You know, someone to show me the ropes, to give me advice, to teach me all the tricks they've picked up in their lifetime. But where could I get one of those? Certainly not my genin team. I mean, it's not like there's anyone there who's being paid to teach us things that we'll need later on, in both our ninja careers and in life. (sigh) Kakashi sucks.

--

"Now then, on to Squad Seven's next mission. You've got... babysitting Yojyu-san's little boy, grocery shopping at a neighboring town, you can help dig up potatoes-

"HELL NO!" Someone cut off the Hokage. No one cuts off the Hokage, at least, no one's supposed to.

Everyone looked to Naruto, he seemed... irate.

"I'm tired of this manual labor crap, it's not even the _fun_ manual labor crap! I want a real mission, a ninja mission!"

_For once, I think I agree..._

_What an idiot..._

_Hmmm? I was wondering when this was gonna happen._

Iruka was spending the day working as the Hokage's aid, and decided to speak up regarding Naruto's outburst, "You idiot! You're still a rookie! People start at the bottom, until they get more experience and work their way up-"

"That's exactly what I'm saying! We're still rookies! And rookies who waste time not doing anything ninja-related, are still rookies!" Naruto seemed quite adamant on the whole ninja mission thing.

"Listen, you idiot!" Iruka screamed. "You need to-"

"Naruto's right," Sasuke said, cutting in. "These missions aren't experience, their errands. We're shinobi, we need shinobi experience."

"Perhaps _I_ should explain," Sarutobi said. Everyone looked to him. "Many clients come into this village everyday with missions they want completed. From life-threatening ones to harmless deliveries. These missions are ranked A, B, C, and D based on their difficulty and the dangers they present. After each successful mission, we collect a fee that helps to keep the village strong. You, as untried genin, must continue to complete D-Ranked missions until you prove yourselves ready for the more important missions."

"So _let _us prove ourselves," Naruto pleaded. The Hokage looked over at Kakashi, and saw the jounin give a subtle nod.

"Very well, I'm going to give you a C-Ranked mission. Tazuna-san, would you please come in?" The door to the room slid open and an old man stumbled in. He reeked of alcohol and was obviously drunk, as made apparent by the bottle in his hand. Naruto almost growled at him, the mere _presence _of alcohol usually pissing him off to no end.

"It is I, Tazuna-sama, bridge builder extraordinaire!" The man said as he flourished.

"You look like a pathetic old drunk, if you ask me," Naruto said darkly.

"What?" the bridge builder asked, finally taking a good look at the genin. "These are my bodyguards!? They look like a bunch of idiots, especially the small, stupid-looking one."

"What did you say, you fat, miserable old bastard!?"

"Watch your mouth you little punk!"

"Ha!" Naruto huffed, crossing his arms and looking at the Hokage. "There's no way in hell that I'm going to protect that old coot!"

"Now listen, you idiot!" Tazuna yelled, waving his bottle around wildly. "I wouldn't want to be escorted by the likes of you anyway!"

"Now, now," Sarutobi said amiably, raising his hands in a placating gesture, "Tazuna-san requested a team to carry out a C-rank escort mission. Naruto, you asked for a higher ranked mission, there's no need for for any trouble to be had."

The bridge builder immediately shut his mouth at the reminder of what he'd asked for. The genin, however, would not be swayed so easily.

"But he's such a-"

"Hey, you little brat!" Tazuna interjected. "I paid you guys to be my guardians, and that is exactly what you're gonna be! Don't you shinobi have some ninja code about taking every mission you're assigned!? So shut up and guard me!"

Naruto's eye twitched.

--

We've been walking for hours. At first, I was excited because it had been a while since I had last left the village, but now... Now it's just boring. Why can't we be attacked already? I wanna kick some ass! I tried to talk to Sakura, but she screamed at me to shut up and tried to talk to Sasuke, that bastard. (sigh) So bored, so bored so bored so bored so bored so bored...

"Um, Tazuna-san?" Sakura asked.

"What is it?" Tazuna replied.

"Well, you come from the Land of Waves, right?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Sensei, aren't there shinobi in your country too?"

"No," Kakashi said. "There are no ninja in the Land of Waves, but there are in other countries. And each of those villages have their own rules, customs, and cultures... and their own shinobi. So sometimes, and under different conditions, people choose different village for different purposes."

"How so?" Sakura asked.

"To the people of this continent, shinobi villages mean strength, military strength. In other words, that's how they protect themselves and maintain a balance of power. And while some villages are stronger than others, some villages are much more _liberal_ about what they're willing to do to maintain that balance of power. And since the villages aren't controlled by any government, they're independent and free to do whatever they wish. A small island, like the Land of Waves, has natural protection from the sea, so there isn't any real need for a ninja village."

I decided to throw in my two cents there, "What about internal problems? All it takes is one power-hungry idiot, and a land with no ninjas can be utterly crushed. How would they deal with that?"

"Well they would have their own police force," Kakashi explained. "But I suppose if someone strong enough was to come along, they would request aid from a ninja village. You see, there are five ancient countries that have shinobi villages: the Land of Fire, of Water, of Lightning, of Wind, and of Earth, the Five Great Shinobi Nations.

"The Land of Fire has the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the Land of Water has the Mist, Lightning has the Hidden Cloud Village, Wind has the Sand, and Earth, the Stone. Only the strongest in, and the leaders of, these villages are given the name 'kage,' which means shadow. Mizukage, Raikage, Kazekage, Tsuchikage and our very own Hokage. Each kage is a great shinobi in his or her own right, and each of them has something special, something incredible about them that is beyond phenomenal. For instance, Hokage-sama is known as "the Professor" for his vast knowledge of jutsu techniques and theory, while it is said that the Raikage of Kumo is also called "the End" for his ability to seemingly replicate the very effects of Ragnorak.

"They're allvery powerful in their own right, and would be more than willing to lend their strength to a lesser nation, even if it would take a little extra... incentive to get their attention. They would probably not hesitate to send out their forces and neutralize the problem. The Land of Waves is known for its ports, you know, and the various trade routes it has access to."

The three genin took a moment to reflect on that. The old man had certainly never come across as one of the most feared shinobi of all time, but Kakashi had just said that the Hokage's power was paramount to a king. A king didn't have the ability to single-handedly annihilate the enemies' forces.

"Hey! You all just doubted Sandaime-sama, didn't you! That's what you were thinking!" Naruto and Sakura tensed up, that had been exactly what they were doing. Kakashi, though, just relaxed. "Well... I guess it's alright. It's been a long time, you see, a very long time, since Hokage-sama has had to prepare himself for battle. We can all be grateful for that, a Hokage going into battle is a great and terrible thing to see, and nearly always means war." Kakashi looked to the sky, thinking of all the thing he'd seen during the last Great Shinobi War. "Regardless, this is a C-Ranked mission, you won't be running into any ninja opposition, so relax."

In the back of the group, Tazuna began to fidget nervously, but it went unnoticed by all.

--

"What?!" The three genin and the bridge builder turned back to see Kakashi wrapped in chains.

The two shinobi, clad in black, pulled the chain taut. "Do it!" one said. They both pulled back, slicing through Kakashi like butter.

Sakura screamed and Naruto grit his teeth to keep from yelling out. The two ninja reappeared behind him and began to laugh sinisterly. "Now, it's your turn." They flicked their arms, causing the chains to rise into the air, and prepared to cut through Naruto, just like they cut through Kakashi. But before they could do anything else, Sasuke leapt into the air, throwing a shuriken and then a kunai to pin the chain to a tree. Naruto recovered quickly launching a few shuriken at the two shinobi.

The ninja, unable to get free, leapt into the air to avoid them. One brother jumped right into a sickening aerial kick from Sasuke, knocking him out. The other managed to release the chain in time to get out of harm's way.

Blinded by rage at his ally's defeat, the second brother tried to rush Sasuke, only to miss the thirty or so kunai coming at him. By the time he did see them, though, it was too late, and they had all buried themselves into him. The kunais disintegrated into dust, and the dust subsequently flew around, sending biting pains throughout the many wounds. The second brother screamed out in agony, before passing out from the pain.

"Well, that was certainly interesting."

Everyone who was still conscious, and the brothers probably would have too, gasped and turned to see Kakashi, still alive and not a scratch on him. Kakashi grinned from behind his mask, and raised his hand in greeting, "Yo."

--

After hearing the bridge builder's sob story and agreeing to continue on, Squad 7 found themselves on a path, walking towards a lake. They had already crossed the sea on a boat and were currently on their way to Tazuna's house. Sasuke was pissed. Naruto had done some jutsu with his kunai and multiplied it, and he had seen Naruto multiply himself against Kakashi, it was bugging him. Where the hell was this... this _loser_ getting these jutsus? They should belong to him, he was the one who needed them. Who the hell was teaching Naruto, when they could have been teaching him, the Last Uchiha!

While Sasuke was having his emotional breakdown, Naruto was feeling... edgy. Something didn't sit right with him, something felt... off. Out of nowhere, he jumped and released a kunai as fast as he could.

Sakura screamed and hit him over the head exclaiming,"Stop acting like a little kid and trying to scare us!"

"Why'd you hit me!" Naruto yelled. "There really is someone there!" When they checked the bush they saw a small little white rabbit, stunned by the knife. Naruto unconsciously licked his lips, he had tasted rabbits once, when he was six and had been forced to hunt for food. It had been delicious. He went to retrieve his kunai, when he noticed something about the rabbit's color. He heard the sound of a blade slicing through the air a split second before Kakashi. The two of them yelled in unison,

"Everybody get down!"

A gigantic sword came flying at them, but they just managed to dodge it. The sword cut into a tree and a very large man landed on it. He wore no shirt and what appeared to be baggy dress pants. The lower half of his face was covered in bandages and he bore a forehead protector that stated quite clearly that he hailed from the Village Hidden in the Mist.

Kakashi placed his hands in his pockets and walked over to the grey-skinned man. "Well, well! If it isn't Momochi Zabuza, rogue ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist." Kakashi stared down the newcomer with confidence, but secretly thought to himself, _If we're going to be facing the likes of him, I'm going to need this. _The jounin raised his hand to his headband.

"Kakashi of the Sharingan... did I get that right?" Zabuza asked. "It's really too bad, but you're going to have to hand over the old man."

"You know we can't do that, Zabuza." Kakashi looked over his shoulder. "Everyone," he commanded, "Monji formation, quickly. Protect Tazuna. This fight is mine, don't get involved." Naruto was about to interrupt when he was quickly silenced. "I taught you all to work together as a team, now do it." Kakashi lifted his forehead-protector, revealing a scar straight down his eye. The eye itself was red and possessed three commas.

"Well," Zabuza drawled. "I get to see the Sharingan in action, I'm getting goosebumps."

"The sharingan?" Naruto said, "What's that?"

Surprisingly, it was Sasuke who answered him. "The Sharingan... it's a very rare ability. It resides in the eyes and is an optical technique, or doujutsu. The user can instantly track and analyze any genjutsu, taijutsu or ninjutsu they see. They can even copy and reflect the attack right back at the one who is using it. The Sharingan is a special and rare form of doujutsu."

"You've got it right, boy." Zabuza spoke, still atop his sword, eyes never leaving Kakashi. "The Sharingan's ability to copy and comprehend is unmatched and unparalleled." As the bandaged ninja spoke, a fog began to drift in. The mist was deep, too deep and it moved in too fast to be natural. The moisture in the air was highly concentrated with chakra, Naruto could almost taste it. He had always had the uncanny ability to sense it, but this was ridiculous. _Is this a jounin? A real ninja? _he thought.

"As for you, Kakashi," Zabuza went on. "In the Assassination Unit of the Hidden Mist, we had a standing order to either kill or capture you on sight. If I recall, you were listed in the Bingo Book as the man who copied more than one thousand jutsus, Hatake Kakashi, the Copy-Cat Ninja."

In a split second, Zabuza disappeared and the ninja began looking for him immediately.

"He's over there, sensei!" Sakura called out. "Standing on the water!" Soon the fog moved in, becoming even denser than before. Zabuza vanished within the mist.

"Who is this guy?" Naruto murmured.

"Momochi Zabuza," Kakashi answered. "The ex-leader of the Kiri Assassination Squad, he's a master of the Silent Killing Technique."

"Silent Killing?" asked Sakura.

"As the name suggests, you are killed in an instant, without a sound or a warning of any kind. It's so fast, that you pass from this world without even realizing you're dead. It cannot be fully neutralized by the Sharingan, so don't lower your guard." Kakashi noticed that the three genin seemed afraid, so he decided to try and calm them down. "Don't worry, though. If we fail the worst that can happen is we lose our lives." It didn't work.

The mist began to get thicker and thicker. Soon, the genin even lost sight of their sensei within the mist. It was then that a voice began to speak, it sounded as if it was coming from all around them.

"Eight points..." Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura all tensed up at the sound of the echoing voice, "Larynx... spine... lungs... liver... jugular... subclavian artery... kidneys... heart... So, which will be my target?" Within the mist, Zabuza readied himself for an attack.

Kakashi chose that moment to release an enormous amount of chakra, blowing away the summoned mist. Feeling the massive killing intent, Sasuke began to shake and his eyes widened. _I... I can't breathe. One small breath... one tiny movement... and it'll draw his attack. _He began to shake even harder as he saw Kakashi in a battle stance, _It's suffocating... The clash of two jounin, waiting to attack. I've never felt anything like this before, I can feel my very life draining away. Any more of this and I'll go insane. _Sasuke tightened his grip on his kunai. _No... No, I'd rather-_

"Sasuke!" Kakashi's voice rang out, "Calm down, and don't worry. I will protect you with my life, _all_ of you." Kakashi turned around and smiled, "I will not allow my comrades to die, trust me."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that..." Zabuza said from within the mist. He suddenly reappeared within the tight knit group of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Tazuna, sword at the ready. Kakashi quickly ran in, pushing all four of them out of the way and shoved a kunai into Zabuza, but the body of the former mist shinobi began to leak water.

A second Zabuza appeared behind Kakashi, and the leaking clone dissolved completely into liquid. Zabuza swung his sword and cut through the copy-nin, only for him to break away into water, too. _The Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu... it can't be! Even in the mist, he saw through my illusion and copied my jutsu!_

Zabuza's eyes widened as a kunai came slashing through his neck, only for Kakashi to discover that he too was a water clone. Another Zabuza attacked the copy-cat from behind with a downward swing. This time, however, Kakashi managed to jump out of the way to the left. The bandaged shinobi pulled back and swung his sword in a 360 degree spin in an attempt to cut the masked ninja in half. Kakashi jumped straight up and over it, and flashed through a few handsigns.

_**"****Katon! Goukakyuu no Jutsu! (Fire Style! Grand Fireball Jutsu!)"**_

The giant fireball hit Zabuza dead on. But instead of the charred remains Kakashi expected to see, the fireball dissipated into steam. When the Sharingan took in the water dripping from Zabuza's body, he understood. _Kiri no Yoroi... the Armor of the Mist. The user condenses water vapor from the air to create a second skin. Since there was already mist floating around from his Kirigakure no Jutsu, the effects were increased and made strong enough to stop my fireball. Clever. _

Zabuza leapt at Kakashi, who was still in the air. He swung his gigantic sword in an attempt to cleave Kakashi in half. Kakashi managed to block the blade with the back of his metal-plated, gloved hand. The copy-nin pushed off and landed a few feet away. As soon as he touched ground, he pushed off again, into the trees to the side. He then pushed off the trunk of one of the said trees, back into the air above the battlefield.

_**"Katon! Housenka no Jutsu! (Fire Style! Pheonix Flower Jutsu!)"**_

Kakashi spat out many small fireballs through his mask at the former mist shinobi, but all of them were blocked with Zabuza's enormous sword. The leaf-nin landed in the middle of the clearing, but had to jump back again towards the lake, because the swordsman came at him with an overhead strike.

When Kakashi landed near the shore of the lake, two more Zabuzas appeared from behind the real one. They came at him from both sides and swung in an attempt to cut him into chunks. Kakashi was forced, once again, to leap backwards to avoid their attack. He landed crouched and had to direct chakra to his feet in order to maintain his balance on top of the water.

When Kakashi looked up, he saw the two clones dissolving into water, and that the real Zabuza had disappeared. Before he had a chance to look around, he was caught.

**_"__Suiton: Suirou no Jutsu (Water Style: Water Prison Jutsu),"_** Zabuza said as he ran through a few handsigns. At incredible speeds, water from the lake rose up, and formed a sphere around Kakashi, effectively trapping him.

Zabuza began chuckling.

"This prison may be made of water, but it's stronger than steel. No matter how hard you fight, you can't move. Troubling, isn't it?" The mist ninja seemed to grin beneath his mask. "Ha! So much, for the great Sharingan Warrior. Heh, I'll finish you off later, but first your little friends will have to be taken care of."

Zabuza formed a handsign and created another water clone.

* * *

Naruto was scared. Usually, he would never admit it, but this was different. Kakashi was stronger, faster and an overall better ninja than him, and he had been beaten. This Zabuza guy was on a completely different level. Sasuke was on the brink of suicide and Sakura... Sakura was frozen, he didn't even know if she was alive. This sucked, this really sucked.

Zabuza chose that moment to begin to speak. "You three!" He immediately commanded the genin's attention. "You wear your headbands like you think you're ninja. But a ninja is someone who has been through many life-or-death situations, countless battles and has the blood of hundreds on their hands. In other words, you're ninja when you can say you have a place in my bingo book."

The mist began to deepen.

"You three aren't ninja..." Zabuza again disappeared into the fog, but this time there was no Kakashi to help them, no one to save them. Zabuza was the ultimate hunter, and he had marked them as his quarry.

Before Naruto could blink, the water clone kneed him in the face, knocking his forehead-protector loose. He vaguely heard Sakura call his name.

Kakashi felt that that was the right moment to call out. "Everyone! Grab Tazuna and run! You can't win against him! He can't move as long as he has me trapped in this water prison. And once you get far enough away, his water clone won't be able to follow. Run, now!"

Sasuke was brought back to his senses at Kakashi's outburst. _Run? You must be kidding,_ he thought._The second you got caught, that no longer became an option. Even if we do run, he'll just catch up to us. And then, without you, we'll be annihilated. No matter what we do, we won't be able to block his attacks. In the end, we don't have much of a choice. In order for us to survive, we have to save you._

"We have to do it!" Sasuke said. With a war cry, he ran at Zabuza hoping to get a shot in. He threw three shuriken at the former mist ninja, in order to create a distraction. When Zabuza blocked them with his sword, Sasuke jumped up and tried attacking from the air. Zabuza easily stopped him by grabbing onto his throat, and then tossing him away.

After seeing this, Naruto looked at the grey-skinned ninja. _Sasuke's right, _he thought._ We have to do this, we have to stop him, there's no other way. _Narrowing his eyes, he jumped away and threw a kunai at Zabuza. Predictably, it was caught with ease. Naruto stared at his headband, trapped underneath Zabuza's foot. He remembered everything he had to do in order to get it, how much he had trained, how much he had suffered. Who was Zabuza to tell him what a ninja was? Fuck Zabuza.

Naruto ran full speed at the former mist ninja. It turned out that his full speed was a lot faster than he remembered it being. Zabuza, seeing the way he stumbled, threw Naruto's kunai back at him. The genin barely managed to duck under it and continue his charge, gaining momentum. As soon as Naruto got within range of Zabuza's fist, he was forced to jump to the ground to avoid it . As his fingers began to grasp at his headband, Zabuza kicked him in the ribs, flipping him over onto his back, forehead protector safely in his hand.

"You... you eyebrowless freak," Naruto gasped out. His ribs were bruised, if not broken, and his unfocused gaze stared up into the sky. "Put _this _in your bingo book: The ninja that will become Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves never backs down and never runs away. His name is Uzumaki Naruto," the blond glared at the large man and tightened his grasp on his headband, "and _that _is his story. That is _my_ story."

* * *

There was a long list of things that pissed Momochi Zabuza off. His eyebrow "condition" was, surprisingly, up there. It was the result of his first mission, where he had gone up against Konoha shinobi. Having another ninja from the leaf make fun of it, was simply infuriating.

He had fully intended on stomping the blond-haired brat's face into a bloody smear on the ground, when he was interrupted. And by interrupted, I mean assaulted with other blond-haired brats. "Kage Bunshin?"

While Zabuza was... occupied, Sasuke grabbed the real Naruto, who was on the floor, by his arms and dragged him away from the brawl.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered to the boy as he was pulled.

"What?" the Uchiha whispered back.

"We have to work together on this one."

"Work together? You can barely move, you idiot!"

"Just tell Sakura to stick with Tazuna, alright? You'll know what to do."

"Hey, don't-" Naruto cut Sasuke off right then and there.

"There's no time for that crap! This is for real, you can act like a spoiled child later, after we survive this." Sasuke just grunted and signaled Sakura to stay near the bridge builder.

"What are you doing!" Kakashi yelled out. "Get the hell out of here! The outcome of this battle was decided the moment I got caught!"

"You're right, sensei." Naruto said. "The outcome _was_ decided, we're not going anywhere."

"You idiots!" Kakashi screamed, getting desperate, "Our mission is to protect Tazuna-san! Did you forget that!"

Naruto looked back at the bridge builder, "Old man..."

Tazuna bowed his head, allowing his hat to cover his eyes, "Don't worry, guys, I caused all of this in the first place, I can't ask you to abandon your sensei. Go ahead, do what you got to do."

Sasuke smirked and Naruto grinned. "If those are our orders..." began the last Uchiha.

"Our hands are tied," finished the blond.

Zabuza began to chuckle. "Ha ha ha, you fools never listen, do you?"

"Yeah, I've got get that checked out. Could be syphilis or otosclerosis or something, " Naruto said. He didn't look the least bit intimidated by the older shinobi.

"You kids are still pretending to be ninja," the swordsman said. Something about that was exceptionally funny to him. "Why, when I was your age, my hands had already been bathed in blood of hundreds," Zabuza proclaimed, stunning all those around him.

"The Demon, Zabuza," whispered Kakashi solemnly from his prison. He looked at his squad, silently pleading with them to leave.

"So, you _have_ heard of me," Zabuza said, pleased with his infamy. "I wonder, have you also heard of our final test?"

"Final test?" Naruto asked. "What final test?"

"A long time ago, the Village Hidden in the Mist was known as the Village of the _Bloody_ Mist. And in that village, there was a graduation 'exam' to become a ninja," Kakashi explained, "and I use the term exam very loosely." The genin began to look even more confused.

"In order to become a ninja, we had to..." Zabuza always enjoyed explaining this part, "kill our classmates." Almost all of the genin flinched, "Can you imagine it? Friends who ate together and lived together, who cried together and dreamed together, were suddenly split into groups and forced to mercilessly slaughter each other. People who had helped one another, shared memories together, competed with each other, were made to fight, until one of them was dead."

"Ten years ago," Kakashi said, "the Hidden Mist went through a... reformation. Because the year before, a demon had appeared."

"A... a demon? Reformation?" asked Sakura. "What did the demon do?"

"A young boy who had not even become a ninja," Kakashi said, "killed the 100 candidates of that that year... and he killed them all without hesitation."

Zabuza looked at everyone darkly. "Ah," he exclaimed, "good times."

* * *

Move List

Power Break- FFX A skill used to lower an enemies attack

Kiri no Yoroi (Armor of Mist) A jutsu of my creation, the user forms a thin layer of water to cancel out lower level fire attacks.


	6. The Hunter

_**Chapter 6: The Hunter**_

--_**  
**_

So it's me, Sasuke and Sakura.

Sakura will be the one guarding the bridge builder, leaving me and Sasuke to take on a jounin-level ninja who, by the way, had not only managed to trap Kakashi-sensei in a mystical water bubble, but was also bloodthirsty enough to systematically massacre a graduating class of ninja before he was even eligible for the exam. And if that wasn't enough, we're not even facing the real one. We have to deal with his water clone first, along with any other bunshins he might summon up, while the real maniac stands in the middle of a fucking lake, completely, and literally, within his element.

So yeah... I know.

**--**

**"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"** Naruto yelled, calling up about fifty copies of himself.

With a simple nod of his head, he commanded his replications to surround Zabuza's clone in a giant circle. Each one of his bunshins obeyed his order, reaching into their weapon pouches and pulling out shuriken, ninja throwing stars, as they did so. Then, the clones flung their projectiles at the water clone and performed the handsigns necessary for the Tobidougu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu in unison, shouting, **"Ooinaru Shuriken Arashi!(Great Shuriken Storm!)"**

Roughly eight hundred bladed throwing stars tripled themselves into twenty-four hundred as they traveled their way towards their target, all aimed for one very unlucky clone. The Demon of the Bloody Mist could only watch in anticipation as his mizu bunshin was skewered, reducing it to its liquid form long before it would have naturally disintegrated into the element which gave it life.

With an "ahhh" of excitement, Zabuza created four more clones and sent them rushing at the army of blonds, each one equipped with its own ridiculously large sword. Swinging their weapons, the replications tried to simply cut through the Naruto's all at once, but the boy's shadow clones proved to be too many to be taken out in one swoop. During the counterattack, one of Naruto's clones had the bright idea to attach an activated explosive tag to itself and rush Zabuza's replications. The other blonds soon followed.

Their destruction created a giant smokescreen, but thankfully since the clones had not existed for as long, and there weren't as many as when he went up against Kakashi, Naruto didn't pass out.

From within the smoke a Fuuma Shuriken cut through the air, moving on a collision course with the real Zabuza. The missing-nin saw its flight path and caught it before it could strike him, but noticed that something felt different about the blade: it didn't feel anything like steel. The shuriken vanished in a poof a smoke and was replaced by a certain orange-clad shinobi.

Naruto, kunai already in hand, aimed a stab at Zabusa's neck. The mist-nin was having none of that though, and threw the blond away effortlessly, avoiding injury.

At that point two things happened unexpectedly to our good friend from Kiri.

First, the kunai that Naruto had tried to stab Zabuza with was dropped, and before it hit the water, it transformed into Sasuke. "A double henge!?"

Secondly, Naruto tapped Zabuza on the spine before he was launched halfway across the lake. As his body was flung away, he managed to whisper to the Mist shinobi "Armor Break."

Thirdly, Sasuke, able to he regain his bearings, managed to pull a kunai out and and jam it into Zabuza's outstretched arm, the one connected to the Water Prison.

--

Zabuza let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Should I repeat that? Momochi Zabuza, ex-leader of the Kirigakure Assassination Squad, the man who killed an entire class of graduating genin before he was even eligible for the test, and a former member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist, _let out a bloodcurdling scream_.

And it wasn't one of those manly Arrgggh!'s either, it was one of those high-pitched, 'pervert!' screams you hear at hot springs.

We made Momochi Zabuza scream like a little girl.

Mission success, baby.

After my clones had blown themselves up and created a smokescreen, I had had Sasuke transform himself into a kunai. Then I grabbed him and and used a henge of my own, transforming both myself and him into a Fuuma Shuriken. I then had one of my clones transform into Sasuke and throw me. When Zabuza caught me, like I knew he would, I released _my_ transformation. The plan was for me to hit him then, but since the probability of that working was low, we had a back up. I would let go of Sasuke and use the Armor Break, so when Sasuke attacked him, it would hurt. A lot. This would lead to the release of Kakashi-sensei, who could then resume his A-ranked ass-kicking.

So yeah... I know.

--

Before Sasuke could hit the water, Kakashi grabbed the boy around the waist and threw him to shore, where the Uchiha gracefully flipped and landed. The copy-ninja ran towards Naruto, who was aiming to fly right into some trees. He seemed to skip across the water as he skillfully made his way over to the blond-haired genin. Just before Naruto would have had his skull smashed open, Kakashi grabbed him as well, subsequently throwing him to the shore. Naruto managed a different kind of landing, though, spinning in in mid-air and landing on all fours.

Kakashi spoke to Zabuza, staring him down with his mismatched eyes and declaring, "You should watch yourself Momochi, the same trick won't work on me twice."

Zabuza, kneeling on the water and nurturing his hand, twisted his face in a grimace of pain. "Screw you, copy-ninja."

The mist-nin's eyes widened, his opponent was rushing at him.

Kakashi got in close and attempted a combination, first throwing a right hook and then sweeping with his left leg. Seeing these two maneuvers dodged, the leaf-nin stepped down hard on the surface of the lake, stabilizing his balance. Twisting his body, he swung his right leg hard, delivering a high roundhouse with it. Unfortunately, this too would be avoided with startling ease.

_What is this? He's anticipating my movements, guessing what I'm was going to do before I do it, it's like he has the Sharingan._

Kakashi jumped away. It was time to do what he did best, play mind games.

--

Zabuza didn't understand what was going on.

One second he was in incredible agony, the next he was easily dodging Hatake's attacks. It just wasn't logical, he had never been that adept at dodging before, he usually preferred to go in with his sword, blocking and chopping things up. It just wasn't his style to maneuver acrobatically.

Now, Zabuza was a great ninja, and had been in countless battles and on dozens of suicide missions: he was a seasoned shinobi. So, it didn't take him long to realized what was happening. The blond brat's 'Armor Break' or whatever had done something to his body, making it more sensitive to pain, but at the same time, it had increase his sensitivity to everything else. So if he got hit, it would hurt like a bitch, but also, because of his new-found delicateness, the swordsman would be able to feel the air around him shift, and therefore allow him to adapt to Kakashi's attacks before they were even completed.

Zabuza smirked beneath his bandages, ready to use this new found knowledge against his adversary, but then Kakashi created some distance between them.

--

_That lake's really blue. _

Naruto felt it was the wrong time to be noticing that, but he couldn't help it. The trees to the side looked brown and murky, almost as if God had lost interest when he was coloring them. When a cloud passed overhead, the entire area darkened. Once the cloud was gone, everything was really bright again.

Wait, what was he doing? They were in the middle of a battle, his sensei was fighting a seasoned killer and he was contemplating _colors_? He didn't know why, but he couldn't stop, couldn't focus. Everything looked so clear, all the things he was seeing looked so _vivid_. It was unreal. In fact, as he was taking in the environment, he noticed something was out of place. _Is there someone in that tree?_ he thought.

_--_

_Has the blond one seen me? I must act now._

--

Kakashi and Zabuza stood across from each other, flashing through handsigns at an incredible pace. They moved at exactly the same time and made exactly the same motions, down to where Zabuza flicked his toe to get a pebble out from under it. As they built up their chakras for the final blast, the speed of their hand movements picked up, increasing to the point where their fingers could no longer be distinguished.

Then... Zabuza was struck down.

Kakashi was immediately on his guard, glancing at Zabuza to record the image of the other ninja with the Sharingan. With this look, he saw the cause of death for the ex-mist shinobi: multiple senbon needles lodged within his neck. It was then that he noticed another ninja standing on the water.

He was wearing a a mask that identified him as a hunter-nin from the Village Hidden in the Mist. The ninja spoke to him,"I must thank you, I was looking for a chance to kill Zabuza, you provided me with the opportunity."

Kakashi jumped over to Zabuza's floating corpse and checked the vitals. "So he really is dead," The jounin muttered. Looking at the other masked shinobi, he spoke again, "If I remember correctly, you're a hunter-nin from the Mist, right?"

The faceless ninja nodded its head in affirmation, "You are very well informed." Disappearing in a swirl of wind and reappeared near Zabuza's body, the hunter went on, "Your battle is over. I must go and dispose of this corpse now. It's a body filled with many secrets, so ff you'll excuse me..." With handsign, the ninja dissappeared again, this time taking Zabuza's body with him.

Kakashi recovered his Sharingan eye and walked over to his genin students and the bridge builder. He noticed Naruto was clenching his fist and that Sasuke was gritting his teeth. "What's wrong, guys?" he asked, but he already had an inkling.

"That guy," Naruto ground out, "he wasn't that much older than us, and he killed Zabuza, like it was nothing." Naruto lost his temper and yelled, "Arrrgggh! What are we doing! He took him out, just like that! Compared to him, we're just little kids playing ninja, just like Zabuza said!"

Kakashi looked over at Sasuke, he had the same intensity in his eyes as Naruto. Sakura didn't seem to care one way or another. "In this world," he said,"there are people that are younger than you... and yet stronger than me." Kakashi let them contemplate that for a while. "Let's go. Tazuna, lead the way."

--

On the way to Tazuna's house, Naruto recalled something an ANBU once told him. "Hey, sensei?"

"Yeah?" Kakashi replied, looking over at the blond.

"Don't hunter-nin destroy a body in order to keep their villages secrets secret?" Naruto asked.

"Sounds about right."

"Well, aren't they supposed to do it at the place of death?"

"Normally, yes. But their are exceptions, like if the body is found in water or in an area that is unstable."

"So..." Naruto still didn't buy it, something was off about the whole situation.

"Naruto, don't worry. We won't be hearing from Momochi Zabuza again.


	7. Chakra Control

_**Chapter 7: Learning to Train Chakra Control**_

_**--  
**_

After first being introduced to Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami, and his grandson, Inari, Team Seven found themselves enjoying a nice little dinner.

It was at this dinner that Kakashi finally decided to do something about the condition of his team. He had noticed on the way to Tazuna's house that his entire squad had been troubled by something: Sasuke looked angsty, Sakura looked conflicted and Naruto just looked jumpy.

Whatever was bugging them, needed to be cleared up, and fast. Team Seven was on a mission, and they couldn't afford to be dealing with emotional baggage right now. Kakashi sighed, "Alright guys, ninja meeting, after dinner."

--

They had just finished eating and all four ninja were seated in Kakashi's room. No one said anything for awhile, while the jounin simply looked at the other three, waiting for one of them to say what was on their minds. "Okay guys," he began, "I wanna know what's up, and I want to know now."

Noticing that all three of his genin chose to remain silent, Kakashi decided to make the decision for them, "Alright then... Sasuke! What's the problem?" Kakashi asked. Sasuke said nothing, he just stared at Kakashi. "Come on, something was obviously upsetting you at dinner." After a while, the jounin got the message. "Oh, right."_ He always looks like that._

"Alright then, Sakura, _you_ first."

The only kunoichi of the team looked up, startled. "It's just that..." the pink haired girl began. "Well, you... You didn't even give him a chance!" She blurted out.

"Come again?" Kakashi asked, clearly he was missing something.

"Against Zabuza, when you were fighting him, you went straight for the kill, you never gave him a chance to surrender." Sakura said.

Kakashi looked at Sasuke and Naruto, they looked just as bewildered as he was. Well, not Sasuke, he just quirked an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"In the academy, they taught us that we should always give somebody the benefit of the doubt. If the enemy was at your mercy, you should try and convince him to walk away from the fight. But you, you were going to _kill _Zabuza when you could have just incapacitated him!"

Kakashi, however, was still confused._ When the hell was Zabuza ever at my mercy? Ohhhhh, does she mean when I destroyed his water clones? Is that what this is all about? The council's plan for maintaining the innocence of the future, my ass.  
_

"Sakura... grow up," Kakashi said. Quite bluntly in fact.

"Wha?" Sakura asked flustered.

"That was a battle between shinobi, it was kill or be killed, like all _true_ shinobi battles. I promised you guys that I wouldn't allow you to be killed, so I had only one other option." Kakashi lectured.

"B-b-but the academy said-" Sakura stuttered.

"The Leaf has a reputation to uphold," the jounin said, interrupting Sakura. "Konoha advertises itself as the "nice guy" of the shinobi villages, as opposed to Kiri, which takes pride in it's violent streak. When choosing a village, most clients are drawn to the one that live by standards of peace and love, so that they can enjoy a feeling of safety and comfort in their choice. They teach you to show mercy in the academy as a way to further exhibit the Leaf's..." Kakashi paused, searching for the right word, "altruism. And yeah, that kind of thing's okay when you're dealing with bandits and nobodies, but against other ninja, unless you're ridiculously stronger than them, that mercy crap doesn't happen often"

Sakura looked as if she wanted to say something, but Kakashi cut her off again. "While we, as a village, do display a bit more humanity in our actions than other ninja, we must still be willing to do whatever it takes to complete the mission,regardless of whatever that whatever is. Giving Zabuza a chance to surrender would be showing him mercy he would never have shown us in return."

"But," Sakura said, "then what separates us from evil ninja like Zabuza!"

Kakashi leaned over to look the pink haired kunoichi in the eye. "Ab-so-lute-ly nothing," he said, enunciating every syllable. "We are shinobi, they are shinobi, and in the world of ninjas, that's all that matters." _Why do _I_ have to give this talk?_

"There is no good and no evil, there is only the mission, your comrades and those that get in the way of the previous two. _That_ is what it means to be a ninja."

An air of seriousness and solemnity seemed to permeate the room, but, like all things, Kakashi managed to ignore it away. It's weird. "Alright Naruto, what's eating you?"

Naruto took a deep breath, knowing he had to do this right. "Sensei, something's up." Kakashi waited for him to elaborate. "We're really going to have to step up our training-"

"What are you talking about!" Sakura nearly shouted in worry, cutting him off. "We just survived a life-threatening experience, we need time to recover!" After having just been utterly shut down by Kakashi, she really needed someone to take out her frustrations on... and Naruto was her regular punching bag.

Unfortunately for her, Naruto wasn't in the mood. To him, there had been a sense of urgency in the situation ever since Tazuna had explained what had happened in Wave and what kind of person Gatou was. "We can't just sit back and relax!" he yelled. "I'm telling you, this fight, it..." he trailed off, "it isn't over."

Kakashi just shrugged it off. "Naruto, trust me. Zabuza is dead, don't worry about it."

The blond-haired genin's temper surged once more. "YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!" His voice quieted and he began to talk in low tones, as if to show he was serious.

"I_ know_ people like Gatou, I spent the first seven _years_ of my life around people like him. People who are cruel, desperate and ruthless, people who are willing to do anything and everything it takes to get what they want. The bridge is almost done. If Gatou wants to stop Tazuna, he's going to do it now. That's why he sent out the heavy artillery, you don't hire someone like Zabuza_, _unless you're getting desperate. He's going to throw out everything and anything he has, to destroy Tazuna and to destroy the bridge."

Naruto stopped and took a breath. "Trust me, sensei. This bridge, it's standing between Gatou and complete control over an entire country. He's not gonna go down without a fight. We need to be ready."

Kakashi sat back and put his hand to his chin, not unlike what he had done on the first day the genin had met him. Surprisingly, Naruto's rant had actually made sense. Kakashi had been on enough missions in the slums of various cities, not to mention the Leaf itself, to know what Naruto was getting at. _If he's right, we're going to have way more trouble than Zabuza could ever hope to dish out. I was originally going to teach them tree-walking, but now... Well, they'll still need better chakra control, so... _

"Alright guys, go to bed. We'll begin training at five," Kakashi said with a sadistic grin. "Oh, and anyone who oversleeps gets a wake up call, Kakashi-style."

With that his three genin students went to their rooms and to sleep. Sakura did so with a glare directed at Naruto, Sasuke with a hidden smirk, and Naruto with a full-blown grin.

_Damn it Naruto..._

_Finally, more training._

_HELL YEAH!_

--

When Kakashi says wake up at five, it's in your best interest to wake up at seven. Because otherwise, you've woken up early for no reason at all, a lesson Team Seven learned the hard way. Unfortunately for the genin, Sakura was too groggy that morning to attack Kakashi's sleeping form. Had she, they would have known that it was a shadow clone put there for the sole purpose of pissing them off.

Their jounin instructor was in actuality on a small cliff, paying his respects to friends long gone. He normally wouldn't even consider such a thing on a mission, but he had a reputation to maintain. Maybe someday, his students would get to learn the truth about his tardy habits, but for now, they would suffer.

--

"Yo!" The three younger shinobi jumped, startled. Well, Sakura jumped, Sasuke just looked up and Naruto was... meditating?

"Hey, weren't you in bed!" Sakura screamed.

"Nope," Kakashi said, just like that. "What's up with Naruto?"

"Probably sleeping," Sakura said. She grabbed the front of the blond haired ninja's jacket and pulled it up. Sakura was really glad she was taller than him. "Hey, Naruto! Wake up!" Sakura reared back her fist to punch him in the face.

Naruto learned how to meditate at a young age, he just never bothered to do it until Auron came along and practically forced him to in order to "get some peace and quiet." The one thing he learned quickly was that he got into some pretty deep trances, and that any attempts to wake him up were either unsuccessful, or ended in violence.

Sakura's fist was about an inch from his face when he opened his eyes. And it wasn't slowly either, they snapped open so fast that Sakura flinched. And as soon as she got a good look at his eyes, the girl dropped him immediately and backed away slowly, like prey trying to placate a predator.

Sakura had never seen something like that before. Naruto's pupils had become slitted, and the blue color of his eyes had darkened. But that wasn't what had scared her, it was the utter _hate _she had seen in them. Sakura had _never_ expected to see so much uncontrollable rage directed at her, least of all from _Naruto_.

She could barely breathe, the air suddenly seemed so... so _solid_. She could feel it around her, crushing her, constricting her. _Am I going to die?_ she thought. It was even worse than Zabuza, because Naruto was right there, right in front of her, and all his attention was on _her_.

Then... it got worse.

Other emotions began to blend into the hate and into the anger. Things like lust, like pain, things like ambition and drive and love and sorrow and all the other things in the world. It all began to merge together into some twisted symphony of feeling and emotion and-

When Sakura had dropped Naruto, he had landed in his chair. Now he stood, his fist clenched, his face blank, and not once did he take his eyes off the girl. Kakashi and Sasuke were oblivious to it all, because the intent, the presence, was so concentrated and so _focused._ Naruto took a menacing step forward and Sakura flinched. The blond ninja raised his hand towards the pink-haired kunoichi as if to grab her.

And then it just stopped. All of it.

The feeling and the emotion dissipated, Naruto's eyes softened, he redirected his hand to scratch the back of his head and Sakura dropped to her knees.

The jounin looked at the pink haired girl in concern. "Are you okay, Sakura-chan? You look tired."

Naruto flashed her one of his grins, acting completely oblivious to what he had just done. "Ya know Sakura-chan, if you're always so groggy in the morning, maybe you shouldn't even bother going to sleep at night." He hoped Sakura would be pissed off enough to forget what had just transpired, or at the very least walk it off and pretend it didn't happen, because that was exactly what he planned on doing.

_I... I can't believe it. I-I actually wanted to do those things to __her, I-I wanted to rip her in half... I wanted to _split_ her in half..__.__What's... what's happening to me?_

--

Kakashi led his students to a clearing in the woods that was within earshot of Tazuna's house. "Alright guys, first things first. We will start with a review of chakra."

"What's the point?" Naruto asked. "We already know what it is and how to use it for jutsu, so..."

"No," Kakashi interrupted, "you don't know what it is and you really have no idea how to use it. You don't get it all, but you think you get it, which is why we're out here. Not getting it, but thinking you're getting it is actually worse than just not getting it, get it? This power? You have not mastered it, you have only scratched the surface of it. Chakra is a mixture of physical and spiritual energies, and you need to draw on both in order combine them within yourself and create chakra. But, the question I pose to you is: how do you do that?

"Each jutsu requires different types of chakra, in different amounts and you have to select and combine them in exactly the right way. Up until now, you've only been guessing at the amounts, hoping they come out right. Even if you can summon an enormous amount of chakra, unless you can balance and control it, it's all worthless. The jutsu won't work at all, or it'll just be a joke.

"You guys waste so much energy that way, and then you're out of chakra and you can't fight at all. You just become a target."

_He's right,_ Naruto thought._ Except for the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, it's so difficult for me to get my jutsus to do what I want. I always have to concentrate so much on what I'm doing, I can't focus on anything else._ "So sensei, how do we change that?"

"It's simple," Kakashi said. "Train until controlling your chakra becomes second-nature and you do it just as easily as you would blink." Kakashi started towards one of the large oaks that surrounded the clearing. "And to achieve this goal, you have to be ready to put your life on the line."

"What exactly do we have to do?" Sasuke asked, not-quite fearing the answer.

"Climb a tree."

"What?" The three genin expressed doubt in their teacher's sanity.

"Yeah, all you have to do is climb a tree, but there's just one rule, you can't use your hands." The jounin demonstrated the skill by walking vertically up the trunk of a large tree and settling on the underside of a branch. "It's quite simple really, just direct your chakra to the soles of your feet and use it to stick to the tree."

"Well, that's great and all," Naruto said, "but how does that help us beat people up?"

"You're not getting the point of the training," Kakashi replied. "First, you'll learn to draw a precise amount of chakra to an exact point on your body. This is difficult even for advanced ninja, because this type of climbing requires a subtle mix of physical and spiritual energy, not to mention the fact that the bottoms of the feet are the most difficult point to focus chakra to. If you can master this, you can master any jutsu, theoretically.

"Secondly, this training will help you learn how to maintain your chakra output. When a ninja is in battle, it's even harder to control his or her chakra, which could be fatal. To avoid this, maintaining chakra must become second-nature and happen on an instinctual level, it must become effortless.

"Well," Kakashi said, winding down from his lecture, "we could talk about this all day, but that won't do anything for your skills, now will it?" The jounin threw down three kunai at the feet of the genin. "Use them to mark your progress as you continue up the tree. To start off, you might want to take a running start. Begin."

The three young ninja all ran at their own tree.

Sasuke managed to get a few steps up his before he ended applying too much chakra to it and got blown off.

Naruto only got one of his feet onto the tree before the immediate overload blew him off.

Sakura made it all the way to the top.

"Hm?" Kakashi hummed, already engrossed into a small book he always carried with him, "It seems that the _female _member of our team has the best chakra control."

Sakura could feel her spirits soaring because of her teacher's praise, even after his comments the previous night. Unfortunately, she couldn't rid herself of the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach left by what had happened that morning with Naruto. So when she smiled, it was only half-heartedly.

"Oh, and by the way, guys, nobody leaves until you've all mastered it." _If that isn't incentive to get moving, I don't know what is._

"But sensei," Sakura began.

Kakshi interrupted her, "I said that nobody leaves for anything, so nobody leaves... for _anything._"

"What if someone attacks the house?"

"Shut up Naruto."

--

An hour passed.

Sasuke got higher, Sakura got tired and Naruto? Naruto hadn't actually managed to get a single foot off the ground before his chakra forced him off the tree. In fact, if he didn't use any chakra at all, his momentum actually took him higher than he got when he did use it.

I'm sure you all know this, but Uzumaki Naruto isn't well known for his patience, and he's getting rather irritated.

_Damn! Damn! Damn! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMN!_

_**My, my, my, aren't we exacerbated?**_

Naruto didn't reply. He was so frustrated, he was unable to even form a coherent thought to respond the voice in his head. _**  
**_

_**Awww, what's the matter? Is wittle Nawuto-chan, gonna cwyyyy?**_

Naruto glared at the tree in front of him and clenched his teeth. _Are you going to help me out here or not?_

_**Why should I? You hardly ever visit anymore.**_

_I can't visit you, YOU'RE A VOICE IN MY HEAD!_

_**But still, I never get a 'Hey dude, you there? How have things been with you lately?' And quite frankly, I'm offended. Do you have any idea how lonely it is in here? There's like, nothing, anywhere. Heh. Get it? I called you stupid.  
**_

Naruto continued to say nothing._**  
**_

_**So what? I'm suppose to give you advice?**** Is that my **_**j****ob**_**?**_

Naruto nodded. _You gotta pay up sometime, you freeloader._

The disembodied voice-in-a-head scoffed. _**Okay then, dumbass, listen up: From what I've seen, the way we control chakra is a little different from everyone else and that's why you're being unsuccessful.**_

_How's that?_

_**You see, civilians have, at best, a faint idea of where their chakra is and how to access it. Shinobi are more aware of it, since they've trained from a young age to feel and utilize it. But you are even more cognizant of chakra than most shinobi, it's why you can't get a hang of this, and probably why you waste so much chakra in your jutsu.**_

_Why?_

**_My best guess? The man from the other world._**

_Auron?_

**_You know other men that come from different worlds? Yes, Auron, you idiot. It seems that the techniques you've learned form him, and are continuing to learn, have morphed your chakra coils in order to compensate for the specific set of conditions they require._**

Like what?

**_I don't know. He hails from a completely different universe, so its logical to assume his powers would have some sort of effect on you, adverse or otherwise, but I can't accurately predict how far the changes will spread, only make educated guesses._**

_**What I can see is that this increased 'Chakra Awareness' you've recieved from him is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that it means that you naturally have better chakra control than most people, but it's a curse because until you completely master chakra and use of it, you'll be severely handicapped whenever you try and pull off a jutsu. **_

_Are you kidding me?_

_**Shut up cricket dick and let me finish. Look, when most people use chakra, they decide how much they want to use and tell it where to go. So for instance, if your sensei wanted to stick to a tree, he'd send the correct amount of chakra to his feet. If he wanted to create an explosion from his palms, he'd send the right amount to his hands. **_

_**But for you, it's different. You have to decide how much chakra to use, tell it where to go, tell it how to go there, tell it how quickly to move, and then once it gets there, you have to tell it what to do. **_

_**For example, if you wanted to stick to a tree, granted you knew how much chakra it would take, you would have to use the correct amount of chakra, tell it to go through your legs, tell it go to your feet, make sure that it gets there at such a moment that the timing coincides with you running up the tree and then... **_The voice trailed off.

_And then what?_

_**And then... beats me, that's all I got. The last part is what we have to figure out to master this exercise: what to tell your chakra to do in order to get you to stick to the tree.**_

_So all I have to do is-_

_**NO! Wait! Shut up! I'm on a roll!**_

_Huh?_

_**You have no idea how long it took for me to figure this all out! So, I'm going to explain everything to you, then you're going to be stunned by my crazy intelligence, and **__**then**__** we DO THIS! Got it?**_

_Okay crazy, relax... _Naruto sat down, crossed his legs, and folded his arms. _I'm listening._

_**You're the one hearing voices and **__**I'm**__** crazy? Whatever. The reason you waste so much chakra is because jutsus don't work for you using the usual method, so, in order to make up for that, you force out enormous amounts of energy, hoping that something will click and the jutsu will work. And while that's great for some techniques, the better ones require some degree of control.**_

_Could you explain again how any of this is a good thing?_

_**All you have to do is stop forcing your chakra and actually try and control it. If you can do that, then this exercise will become child's play, and all the jutsus in the world will become yours for the taking. You master your chakra, and you'll be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. You'll be able to, at will, regenerate chakra, even absorb it from your environment.**_

_My environment?_

_**You've never noticed? There's chakra all around you, in the air, in plants, in animals, everywhere.**_

_So I'll be able to steal other people's chakra?_

_**YES! You're finally getting it! The possibilities are endless. But... there's a catch.**_

_What?_

_**It'll take years, decades even, to attain that level of control.**_

_What!?_

_**It's not so bad, you actually already have an incredible level of control, but in order to take advantage of it, you need an enormous amount of time, time you don't have on the battlefield. It'll take a lot of hard work and practice, to make controlling your chakra a reflex like Hatake Kakashi told you to, but trust me, once you do, you'll be unstoppable. You'll be able to create completely unique jutsu and do things that no one else can.**_

_**So... you stunned?**_ the voice asked._**  
**_

_Yeah,_ Naruto thought, almost literally in a daze._  
_

_**What was that?**_

_Oh, I mean "..." _

_**That's more like it. Let's get started.**_


	8. Treehugger

_**Chapter 8: Giving A Whole New Meaning to the Term: 'Treehugger'**_

_**Let's get started.**_

* * *

Hatake Kakashi was perplexed.

Not an unusual feeling, the one of confusion, but for Kakashi, a man who prided himself on his uncanny ability to see things others couldn't, it was most unsettling. After all, he knew that Naruto had had horrible control, but this level of incompetence from the blond was simply ridiculous. The boy hadn't even managed to get a foot off the ground before getting blown off the tree, and, what with the way things were progressing, it looked like Team Seven would be in that clearing for a very long time... and Sakura had to pee. Heh heh.

But suddenly the knucklehead ninja had stopped trying, and instead chose to just stand there and glare at the tree he was supposed to be climbing.

Now, Kakashi didn't _like _the demon container, him being a living reminder of his sensei's death and all that, but he had always had a small iota of respect for Naruto's never-say-die attitude. To see the young genin give up was... disheartening to say the least. But when the blond had sat down with a look of concentration on his face, it hit him: Naruto wasn't giving up, he was thinking things through, the way a shinobi would, the way a shinobi _should_.

At that moment, Kakashi felt some small emotion rise up within him. It was unfamiliar and it took him completely by surprise once he recognized it as hate. He didn't know why. It was completely irrational and unnatural for a sensei to hate his student for becoming a better ninja, and yet...

Uzumaki Naruto was the container of the dreaded Kyuubi no Kitsune, village pariah, dead last of the ninja academy, and lover of all things orange and ramen-related: he supposed it was natural for him to bring up a lot of emotions. But to be fair, it wasn't the demon that lived within Naruto that irked the jounin, rather, it was the striking similarities between him and the best friend Kakashi ever had, not to mention the obvious_ physical_ similarities between the genin and his sensei, the Fourth Hokage.

Or maybe it was just because Naruto had too much damn pride in that small body of his, and he held honor in such a high regard, that Kakashi hated seeing it go to waste as the boy traversed deeper and deeper into the world of ninja. (Interestingly enough, there's an odd story about Asuma and his decision to join the Twelve Fire Sages that coincides with this, but that's a tale for another time.)

The fact, however, remained: it was a horrible idea to hate his student. So Kakashi did just what any good ninja would do, and squashed his feelings about the matter. There was no room for petty emotions on a mission like this, with an enemy of unknown quantity and quality and three cute, little genin to protect.

Damned if a Hatake was going to screw that up.

--

Sasuke, on the other hand, was feeling quite good about himself. His pink-haired teammate's immediate success with the tree-climbing exercise had dealt a blow to his pride, but after seeing his blond-haired teammate's lack of progress, it healed right up. The Uchiha was actually making progress, something that Naruto could not boast, and when he noticed that the orange-wearing ninja had stopped his futile attempts to get to the top of the tree without using his hands, a single thought crossed his mind:

_So the loser's finally giving up, eh?_

--

Sakura's reaction to Naruto's training break was more curious than anything. She didn't bother to draw any conclusions as to why the ramen-obsessed genin had decided to stop. Normally, she would have assumed the same thing Sasuke did and the go off on a mental tangent of how she and "her Sasuke" were destined to be together without "stupid Naruto" getting in the way, but she still hadn't shaken off the effects of Naruto's killing intent from the morning. So, instead of saying that Naruto was giving up, she just plain didn't think about it. That was okay... right?

--

_**When trying to solve a problem, the first thing you must do is **__**understand**__** the problem.**_

_I have to find out what I have to do in order to get my chakra to stick me to the tree._

_**The second step is to gain all the information you can in order to better understand the situation.**_

_So how do I do that?_

_**Check Haruno Sakura's and Hatake Kakashi's trees for anything out of the ordinary, we need to find out what it is that their chakra is doing.**_

_Wouldn't it be easier just to ask them?_

_**It would.**_

_Then why don't I?_

_**...  
**_

_Damn it._

Naruto got up from his position on the ground and walked over to Kakashi's tree. He rubbed the trunk and examined the bark, but didn't notice anything strange about it. There were no unusual residues, spiritual or physical, and no unexplainable holes or indentations, it was just a tree.

"No help here," he muttered under his breath.

The blond then decided to check out the tree that Sakura had climbed, hoping that her relative inexperience with the technique would leave some more obvious signs as to what she did and what he should do. Unfortunately, it was the same story as with Kakashi's tree, and nothing was out of the ordinary.

Naruto sagged in defeat.

Then he brightened with inspiration.

The answer was obvious: Just because there was nothing on the outside of the tree, it didn't mean that there was nothing hidden _underneath_ the bark.

Naruto had just begun to scratch the wood with his thumbnail when the voice in his head began to snicker.

_What's your problem?_

**_Just thinking about a joke I once heard._**

_Don't you mean a joke we once heard?_

_**...Yeah.**_

Naruto scoffed.

_You know what I'm doing wrong, don't you?_

_**What!? **_the voice mocked, communicating with a tone of false bewilderment._** How could you ever suspect me of such trickery!? But wait... don't tell me... you haven't figured it out yet!? Even with your oh-so-amazing 'scratch the tree with your thumbnail' technique!**_ _**And here I thought you were the best shinobi EVAR!**_

Naruto had no idea what his inner self was talking about, but he decided to wait patiently for it to continue; eventually the voice would get bored of making fun of him and move on. _Man, it/I is/am such a _dick_._

Eventually the disembodied creature's attempts at patronizing its host trailed off. _**So yeah, ****the chakra in the tree has been tampered with.  
**_

_Tampered with? _

_**I see... **_it whispered.

_Well, I don't! So how about you clue me in!_

_**You know something, Kimiko? Without me, you'd be useless. **_

_Well, without me, you wouldn't exist, so don't go giving me lip!_

The voice chuckled at that. And it wasn't one of those well-meaning chuckles, either, nor was it some full blown diabolical laugh. It was soft and sinister, as if Naruto was being teased. It was one of those laughs that say "foolish child, you know nothing and I know everything."

_What's so funny!? _

The voice continued to laugh, but eventually let up. _**You are, boy. But, back to the issue at hand. Go check Hatake Kakashi's tree again, but this time do the same thing you did to Haruno Sakura's. I have a hypothesis and I would like to test it out. **_

Naruto begrudgingly obeyed the disembodied voice in his head and walked over to the tree that Kakashi had climbed. He began to scratch at its bark as well. _**Now check Uchiha Sasuke's.**_ He obliged.

"What are you doing?"

Naruto was snapped out of his reverie by Sasuke's voice.

As he mulled the question over in his head for a moment, the blond briefly entertained the thought of picking a fight, but ultimately, Naruto decided that the distraction of an argument would be more distracting than fun.

"Just need to check something out."

--

Sasuke watched as his teammate walked over to his tree and began to scratch at its bark. Naruto seemed to zone out momentarily, before absentmindedly thanking him and walking away.

_What the hell is wrong with that guy?_

_--_

Naruto began to sweat as he looked around the clearing he and his teammates were in and saw that three pairs of eyes were focused intently upon him. "Eh he he he he," he laughed nervously._  
_

_Well, what now, you maniac!?_

_**Try a tree that no one has tried to walk up.**_

_You're making me look like an idiot, walking around picking at tree bark._

_**You look like an idiot, regardless of what ****I **__**do.**_

Naruto growled lowly, but did as he was told. He smiled placatingly at the other members of his team as he trotted over to another tree and began to scratch at its surface. And it was now, there, that he finally noticed what the voice in his head was getting at._ The trees have chakra..._

_**And? **_the voice questioned.

_This one's different from the others._

_**And why is that?**_

_Because the other trees' chakra were different._

_**Different how?**_

The boy paused. _The other trees' chakra had Sasuke's, Sakura's and Kakashi's chakra mixed in, _he replied uncertainly.

_**And what was the chakra doing?**_

Naruto had to think about that one some more. He thought about it for a few minutes, but was unable to come up with an answer. The orange-clad boy grunted in frustration. He spun around and put his back against the tree. Then let himself slide down to a sitting position, as he began to run his hands through his hair. He closed his eyes.

_It's... it's..._

The genin could feel his disgruntlement at the situation take over. He could think when he needed to, but it was a lot easier if had adrenalin running through his body. While, for most people, the excitement was a distraction, for him, the feeling of complete animation cleared his mind. But that wasn't always such a good idea because jumpiness could lead to mistakes, and sometimes it was good to just calm down and focus, so Auron had once taught him a way to-

**_Take a deep breath._**

_Shut the fuck up_.

**_Guard your emotions, do not allow them to distract you._**

_I told you to shut up._**_  
_**

**_Keep cool and search for your answer. Do not complicate matters, or you'll find yourself trapped._**

_SHUT UP! Those aren't your words, they're _his, _so stop _saying them_. It's pissing me off._

_**Just trying to help you out, no need to be snippy.**  
_

Naruto sighed inwardly.

_So my teammates' chakra is fusing with the trees' chakra, and somehow, that combination is pulling them towards the tree._

_**Academy Day One: Chakra is the energy of life, it resembles and mimics life in all things. And, generally, all things strive to survive.**_

Naruto went over the possibilities in his mind. _Their chakra wasn't entering the tree, so much as it was merging with it. It was like the tree was accepting the chakra, trying to take it... _

Then blond haired boy's eyes snapped open, "No way..." he said inaudibly. He went over it in his head, it fit perfectly with the way the chakra was mixing... but it didn't make any sense at all.

"It's not the chakra that's letting them stick to the tree," he whispered, "it's the tree itself."

_**You see it now, don't you? Your teammates are funneling their chakra into the trees, and the chakras within the trees are responding to it. The trees sense that your teammates are stronger than them, and so, considers them a threat. In lieu of this, the trees wish to create a symbiotic relationship with them, one that will be mutually beneficial, but neither the trees nor your teammates are parasitic by nature. **_

_So they do the next best thing, _Naruto thought in wonderment, _they stick together._

--

Naruto was in shock. If what the voice said was true, then the possibilities were endless. If something as ludicrous as a tree could be that smart, then well... well... Well, he didn't know exactly what that meant, but he knew that what ever it did mean, was going to come in handy in the future.

_**I swear, you're more of an idiot that I ever thought possible.**_

_Whatever..._

_**So you ready to do this?**_

Naruto responded by returning to the clearing, where the other members of Squad 7 were waiting to see the outcome of his actions. Ignoring them, he walked to his tree. He raised his right leg and braced against the trunk.

_**Remember, too little and the tree won't waste its time with you. Too much and it'll be unable to handle your chakra output and reject you.**_

Naruto searched his gut.

He felt the familiar pool of energy within him.

As the genin began to pull upon his massive reserves of chakra, his teammates look on, almost anxious to see the result.

Instead of simply telling the energy to go to his feet, Naruto traced the path it should take, directing the chakra's exact movements. He could feel how the warmth traveled through his body, and how it moved along his chakra network into his foot. He had never tried to access chakra this way before, with a conscious effort into how it moved and where it went. He was surprised to find how easily it flowed. Contrary to the usual rushing torrent, it felt smoother, silkier and overall better.

Once his chakra had begun to slowly pool at his foot, Naruto tried to force it out of his body. Or rather, he asked it to get out and it obeyed.

His chakra flowed into the tree, and it was then that he almost lost control. The tree immediately latched upon his energy, drawing it, pulling it in, but he could tell it wasn't trying to save itself, the tree was just stealing his chakra.

_I need to use more._ The blond haired boy sent more chakra throughout his body. It was mentally tiring. He had to focus on expelling chakra from his reserves and at the same time control where it went, then he had to slowly feed more and more into the tree, lest he overload it. Once Naruto had exactly the right amount though, he could literally _feel _the tree's fear and desperation spring to life. It was an amazing experience, as the tree began to shift and whatever instinct it had began to go into effect.

The tree's own chakra began to leak out. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the chakra begin to wrap around his foot, drawing it in. His and the the tree's chakra began to blend together. However, Naruto realized something, when he tried to move his chakra around inside the tree, the plant's own energy moved with it. He began to enjoy the feeling of controlling foreign chakra. It was similar in a way to turning his pillow over at night, though it was still chakra he was controlling, it was a completely different experience.

He began to force the chakra to layer over and over again over his foot, creating the same effect had he wrapped tape around it and the tree. He tried to pull his foot off the tree, while maintaining his hold on the chakra. It didn't budge. Naruto smirked and hopped with the one leg still on the ground, his right leg still didn't move.

He braced his right foot and lifted his left, so that it joined it's brother on the trunk. As he sent chakra through that leg, he could feel exhaustion begin to overtake him. He hadn't used nearly enough chakra to be running on empty, so it came as a complete surprise. But he persevered, and began to wrap his left as he did his right.

When he was finished, Naruto allowed himself a smile, he was standing horizontally on the trunk of a tree, both feet firmly attached, using nothing but chakra. He would have liked to jump and scream for joy, but he was rather preoccupied at the moment.

_**Nice work. **_The blond boy felt a degree of pride rise up within his chest, the voice almost never offered congratulations._** Only about fifty more feet left to go.**_

--

The other three members of Squad 7 look on in amazement. Just moments ago, Naruto had been unable to make any progress with this exercise. Now, he was pulling off a stunt that Sasuke had yet to be able to master, standing on the tree motionless. Kakashi looked on, seemingly uncaring, but to all who really knew him, which was pretty much nobody, they could tell he was stunned. Sakura displayed her surprise in a bit more open matter, eyes wide, mouth hanging, her body completely still.

Sasuke simply scoffed and attempted to continue his trek up the tree, but unknown to anyone, his thoughts on the matter were all but impassive.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

* * *

I'm sorry if Naruto's training seems a little dull or if his method of tree-walking seems a little out there, but I'm trying to get at something here. I wanted to have him understand and appreciate the world around him more as the story goes on. And Kimiko? Just a random girl's name.


	9. A Dark Deal

It has brought to my attention by a friend of mine, that it may seem like I am bashing the other members of Team 7. I'd like to say that I am not, it's just how I view their natural thought processes to be until later on in the story when they mature and Kakashi gets a reality check.

And to blackcolt8 who mentioned walking on walls and ceilings, that _will _be explained, eventually.

* * *

_** Chapter 9: The Deal**_

Uzumaki Naruto spent the first three years of his life in an orphanage with a caretaker who hated him.

His first memory was of lying on the wooden floor of his room when he was just a couple of months old. In that memory, he recalled his caretaker, a seemingly kind and harmless woman, picking him up and cradling him. He remembered her hands had "accidentally"slipped, when she "unintentionally"lost her grip and dropped him "by mistake". He remembered the pure agony he felt when his soft baby-skull collapsed inwardly as it slammed into the hard, unforgiving floor.

The last thing he could recall from that memory was the eyes of the woman meant to watch over him, as her anger and rage quickly faded into fear and horror. To any outsider, it would look like the realization that she had just attempted to kill a baby had just sunken in.

Uzumaki Naruto was not an outsider.

He knew that, sadly, that hadn't been the last "accident" he would experience while under her care, and he was almost one-hundred percent certain it was not the first. And as far back as he could remember, it always happened the same way:

First, her eyes would darken with dislike, then her dislike would evolve into disgust, her disgust into contempt, contempt into animosity, and animosity into hate. The hate she felt for him would amplify and escalate even more, to the point where it manifested itself. This manifestation would be his caretaker's attempts to"unintentionally" crush, drop, drown, burn, or otherwise harm him. Afterwords, she would be struck by fear, regret, and then finally, relief as his incredible regenerative abilities kicked in.

It was only recently, after a certain silver-haired traitor revealed to him a secret, that Naruto had realized what her fear had stemmed from. His caretaker was afraid that if he died, she would inadvertently release the Kyuubi, and then the fox would, in turn, thank her for her kindness by feasting upon her marrow. It obviously never happened, so this woman, this _stupid_ woman, who had been entrusted with his well-being, actually grew_ bolder_ with time and almost succeeded in killing him, on multiple occasions.

When he was three years old, Uzumaki Naruto managed to come up with, and enact, a very complex escape plan.

Uzumaki Naruto was not proud of this fact.

Nor was he proud of the fact that he had spent four years living in the slums of the Hidden Leaf, camping out in trash cans and cardboard boxes. He wasn't proud of the fact that he had mastered the use of the "shinobi's mask", which was the ability to completely hide one's emotions, by the time he was four. He wasn't proud of the fact that he had gone through emotional torture, that was far worse than even what the most seasoned shinobi had to endure. And he was most certainly not proud of the fact that the first time he had taken a human life had been at the age of five.

Uzumaki Naruto did not have many things to be proud of.

So when he did find something, anything, that made him well up with pride, he grasped the moment, seized it and never let it go. When he had defeated Mizuki, his victory had been tainted with Iruka's many injuries, and seeing him the next day all bandaged up, did nothing to help him feel better. When he had aided in Zabuza's defeat, _that_ victory had been tainted by the Hunter-nin's interference. But this, this achievement, was all him. _Yeah, I had the help of the voice in my head, _he thought, _but it was in __my__ head. Surely, that means it still counts... right? The voice is a part of __me_

So, in light of Naruto's mental trauma and unhealthy emotional state, we'll forgive what he did after he managed to plant himself, two feet on the tree.

* * *

"HEEEELLLLLLL YEAAAAAHHHHHH!" The blond haired boy screamed as he jumped off his... let's call it a perch, and ran over to where Sasuke was still practicing. "In your face, you arrogant SOB! Ha ha ha! Suck it- no, screw that! _Devour_ it!"

It only took Kakashi a split second to process that sentence. He blinked once and began giggling quietly to himself in his tree. He couldn't _wait_ for these kids to grow up, seeing as there's not much you can blackmail out of a twelve year old.

Sakura, regardless of her bladder's current carrying capacity and whatever her instincts were screaming at her, would never let someone make fun of Sasuke, least of all Naruto. "You idiot!" she screeched. "Sasuke-kun could beat you blindfolded, deaf _and _with his hands tied behind his back!"

"But, Saakkkuurrraa!" Naruto whined.

"Leave him alone!" she screamed as she pulled back her fist. A resounding smack echoed around the clearing.

* * *

"Owwwww..." Naruto muttered as he rubbed his head. Sakura scoffed at him before deciding that he wasn't worth her attention anymore..

Naruto looked at her, his euphoria forgotten. A completely unfamiliar thought reverberating throughout his head, _That, that bitch! How dare she? HOW DARE SHE! I'll.. I'll..._ He stopped himself right there, and shook his head to clear it of all homicidal thoughts. _Not this again, I'll just... I'll just get back to work._

* * *

Kakashi watched the so-called "dead-last" of the academy, slide down the trunk of an excessively large oak tree for the hundredth time. It was mind-boggling. The fact that Sakura was the first to make it up the tree, was not overly astonishing. In fact, with the girls tiny reserves, he had totally expected it. But he had also expected Sasuke to be the second.

He had thought he had been proven correct when he had witnessed Naruto's progress, or lack thereof, but then the boy had begun _thinking. _And as incredulous as it sounded, that was all it took. On his next attempt, the young blond had managed to hit a major milestone, immobile attachment.

After that, Naruto had begun making steady progress. It was slow, but faster than Sasuke's, and at this rate, he would be the second to master this exercise. The masked man said nothing as he watched the scars on the trees grow higher and higher.

* * *

Sasuke watched his self-declared rival continue his ascension. It was unsettling, to say the least, and infuriating, to say the most. This blond-haired brat, to whom he had spent the last five years proving, repeatedly he might add, that he was the better ninja, was _beating_ him. It was ridiculous! The Uchiha were second only to the Hokages, and he was the heir of the clan, that made him a prince among princes, a king among men. And this... this _loser_ was outclassing him. No, this simply would not do.

* * *

This was even more mind-boggling. One second, Naruto's gaining on Sasuke, the next, Sasuke's clears a good thirty feet. Kakashi watched the two young boys race up their respective trees, as they got higher and higher. It was unusual, but not to be unexpected, he supposed. Sasuke was just like the Uchihas that came before him, bursting with talent and and burning with pride. He would not allow himself to be surpassed by someone like Uzumaki Naruto, it was just not in his nature.

* * *

_What (gasp) the (gasp) hell!(gasp) I can(gasp) barely breathe!(gasp)_

_**You're tired, idiot. It happens.**_

_Yeah(gasp), but so soon? I can(gasp) usually last much longer than this._

_**You really **__**are**__** an idiot, aren't you? **_The voice said playfully. Naruto didn't respond, he just continued to breathe heavily. The voice seemed to sigh, _**It's like the Cyclops said, moron, chakra is a fusion of both spiritual and physical energies, you need both to create it. If you're lacking one or the other, then you don't have chakra. **_

Naruto said nothing, his breathing was finally calming down.

_**You see, how much spiritual energy you have is determined by your intelligence, mental conditioning and willpower. Your amount of physical energy is determined by muscular strength, physical conditioning, hormone levels and other such miscellaneous factors.**_

_**Luckily for you, you have an abnormal amount of both energies. That undying determination of yours, as well as a certain miscellaneous factor, creates quite an interesting combination, leaving you with near jounin-level reserves.**_

Naruto knew what the voice was talking about. _Kyuubi,_ he realized.

_**And in the heat of battle, when your adrenalin levels are highest, your body creates even **__**more**__**chakra, **_the voice continued, undeterred. _**But right here, right now, you don't have that adrenalin, so you only have your normal reserves to rely on. And you've not only been draining those reserves all day, but the stress you're putting on your mind has been slowly eating away at your spiritual energy.**_

_What stress? _Naruto questioned.

_**Your 'unique' method of chakra control. The human mind wasn't designed to deal with all that strain at once.**_

Naruto flopped down, spread-eagle on the forest floor, _So, this was all for nothing?_ he asked. The blond turned his head and noticed Sasuke looking at him. The bastard was smirking. Smirking! At him! _No way! _he thought_, I'm not giving up._

_**I was hoping you'd say that, brat. I have an idea.**_

_Well, what is it? _Naruto inquired.

_**See, your problem is that you can't focus on directing chakra and expending chakra at the same time. Those are two things and you're only one person, right?**_

_Yeah..._ Naruto thought, uncertain of where this was going.

_**Wrong, **_the voice replied,_**you're two.**_

_What are you talking about?_

_**There's you... and then there's me. We can work together.**_

_How? _Naruto asked, confused.

_**If you can't focus on doing both things, then only focus on one of them and let me handle the other. So, in other words, all you have to do is tell your chakra what to do and then I'll tell it to keep doing it. **_

_Huh?_

_**You give the orders, and I'll make sure it gets done.**_

_Oh. But, aren't you, like, a figment of my imagination? How the hell is that even possible?_

The voice's... well, voice became uncharacteristically strained, _**You created me, I can do anything you want me to. **_Naruto found it strange that the voice could take a breath as deep as it did after saying that._**Naruto, just think of me as a means to an end, a tool to be used at your disposal. Your wish is my command. To not use me would not only be stupid, it would be barbaric.**_

_How so? _Naruto questioned, was the voice _submitting _to him?

_**You're a ninja, right? What's Shinobi Battle Rule # 4?**_

_A ninja must take advantage of his every asset, tap into his every resource, strike with his every weapon, see with his every sense, yada, yada... yada? Oh._

_**Trust me on this one, okay? **_The voice became a lot more... seductive?_** You can even stop me whenever you feel like it. You'll be in complete control, in complete command. Go ahead, Naruto, use me.  
**_

_Alright, _Naruto said uncertainly. _Just one question, why didn't we do this from the beginning?_

Again, Naruto sensed a bit of unwillingness in the way that the voice spoke. It sounded as if saying what it needed to say was painful, but the sense of seduction was still there. _**I am unable to control your chakra without your consent, and I didn't think that you would**__** give me permission without experiencing the result of not doing it.**_

_Okay..._

_**Just relax, I don't think it'll hurt.**_

* * *

Naruto sat up, from his position lying on his back. He moved so quickly and so suddenly, that his teammates looked over at him to see what was wrong. They looked on in mild concern as the blond's eyes widened, and his normally large, blue iris's contracted and dilated. The blood vessels in his sclera (the whites of the eyes), that were usually near-invisible, became more pronounced and every single one of them could be seen. It created a rather intimidating image, a blood-red spider web expanding from the boy's deep blue orbs.

"Na-Naruto?" Sakura called out.

He was gritting his teeth and burying his fingers into the ground, as if to keep from screaming. He was only partially successful, as he released some kind of yelp from his throat that sounded like what would happen if a groan, a growl and a scream decided to have a threesome, and the scream got pregnant, but since it was impossible to tell who the father was, both the groan and the growl both helped to raise the child. That is to say, it was seriously messed up.

The other members of Team Seven flinched at the noise and moved closer to the blond-haired boy. He was shaking like a leaf and when he spoke his voice was trembling and cracked, "I'm fine, guys. It's just a cramp."

Sasuke only spared him one more glance before returning to his training. Sakura turned away soon after. Kakashi, however, chose to stay and stare at the demon container. Naruto slowly turned his head and flashed his sensei an obviously forced grin, his eyes were back to normal, "Really, I'm okay." To demonstrate his point, Naruto jumped up and began stretching.

He seemed to be in perfect condition, but Kakashi was still suspicious. Then again, it _was_ just like Naruto to make a big deal out of nothing. The jounin opened his book to the right page and began to turn away. "Just don't over do it," he said.

* * *

Naruto waited for his sensei to walk away, before turning back to his tree.

_WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! _

_**Pretty fun, actually. I've never violated someone before.**_

Naruto was shaking again, but this time with rage. _I hate you __so_ _much._

_**(sniff, sniff)But I **__**love**__** you, Naruto! **_The voice mocked.

The aftershocks of pain still hadn't faded, and with the constant taunting, it's understandable that Naruto lost his temper. He yelled out and reared back his fist, fully intending on demolishing the tree in front of him. When his fist was about halfway from making contact with the tree, he realized something that did nothing to soothe his anger, _Great, now my hand is gonna hurt!_

* * *

Naruto blinked, and then blinked again. He hadn't knocked down the tree, or anything like that, but he was certain that he didn't possess the physical attributes necessary to leave a shallow hole in the bark. _Huh?_

_**Like it? **_the voice asked,_** I been around you so long, I can tell what you're going to do, before you know it yourself, and then respond accordingly. We're in perfect sync.**_

Naruto looked around and saw that no one else had noticed. _Awesome..._

On his next try, Naruto managed to make it up to the first branch.

* * *

It's about ten o'clock and I can see the moon. It'll be full in a few nights

When Kakashi, the sadistic bastard, said that nobody could leave for anything, he meant _anything_. I haven't eaten, taken a bath, or been allowed to take care of my personal business, since we came here, and quite frankly, I'm uncomfortable. Sakura's already mastered this technique, and something tells me the only reason she's not rubbing my face in it, is that she would inadvertently be taunting Sasuke too. That and her own discomfort.

Mr. My-testicles-don't-work, on the other hand, is dead even with me, and I get the impression that he feels that this is an atrocity that must be corrected. I am not ashamed to say that I agree, tying with a bastard, is even worse than _losing_ to a bastard, because the first would meant that I was the _same_ as a bastard. No, that would totally not do.

* * *

I stood up and so did Sasuke. I looked over at him and he looked over at me. It was a silent decision on both are parts, but we both understood, this was it, this was the arbiter, this would decide.

_You know, it's funny. It's common knowledge that I don't like Sasuke, and it would take years of torture to get me to admit that I kind of respect him, but I don't think I've ever wanted anything more than to see him on his knees, declaring my superiority. Just the thought of it sends tingles up my spine, is that unusual? _

We walked towards our respective trees. Both of us were exactly five feet away from them.

_I'm twelve years old, and in my twelve years, I've learned a lot. I've learned that seeing a kid in a bright orange jumpsuit normally throws people off, I learned that acting like an idiot generally forced people to underestimate you. But the one thing that I've learned to always count on to be true, is this: Uchiha Sasuke always gets what he wants. I'm not entirely sure if Sasuke feels he deserves this special treatment, but I for one believe that he does not, and it's going to be fun proving it to him._

We didn't look at each other, we just stared straight ahead, waiting for some kind of signal. I don't know why, but we were both trembling, it was probably anticipation. Our signal came in the form of a leaf dancing on the wind. Sakura and Kakashi-sensei watched us. Strangely enough, they also seemed excited about seeing our unofficial challenge. If I wasn't preoccupied at the moment, I would have thought the entire affair strangely poetic, but as it was, I just watched the leaf carefully.

_Actually, now that I think about it, both Sasuke and I have technically mastered this exercise. I think that the only reason that one of us hasn't already said so, is because we both want this. I've always looked to Sasuke as a measuring stick, a barrier to overcome and I've never had the chance to test myself against him, not really. And I think that, after seeing my progress, Sasuke can't wait to test himself, either. Sasuke's not the kind of guy to back down from __any__ kind of challenge, or any opportunity to measure __his__ progress. _

The leaf drifted to the forest floor, and second it made contact, the race began.

We both shot off towards the tree. I think I had the advantage, because Sasuke had to focus on moving his body and controlling his chakra, when all I had to do was run.

It only took us thirty seconds to pass the first branch. I could hear the leaves rustling and the wind rushing, as we raced upward. It was _fun._ That's the only way I can describe it. I could feel my adrenalin pumping, and had a general idea where Sasuke was. I'd never had the chance to race with someone before, and the irresistible _need _to beat someone for no reason than to beat them, was intoxicating.

We were neck-and-neck, and for a while I thought I had won. It was only as we were thirty feet from the top of the tree, and there was no foliage to block my view of Sasuke that I realized a very important fact: Sasuke was faster than me, and I wasn't quite sure I would be able to make up for that.

Twenty-five to go, twenty. He was pulling ahead of me. At fifteen feet, I had just caught up. At ten feet, I was ahead of him, at eight, he was ahead of me. At five, I was in the lead, at three feet, we were tied.

"Done!"

"Goal!"

It was only by a second, but it was official, Sasuke had won.

* * *

The Uchiha smirked at Naruto. It wasn't his usual "I-am-better-than-you" smirk, more like a "Take-that-bitches!" smirk. The dark-haired boy was about to say something, before he stumbled on the narrow treetop. Sasuke managed a small gasp of surprise before he lost consciousness. His body tipped over and began plummeting to the ground.

The two of them were to high up for either Kakashi or Sakura to see Sasuke fall, and by the time they did see him, it would be too late. Naruto only had one option. He leaned back on the slim Branch that jutted out the top of the tree, causing it to bend. With a chakra enhanced jump, as well as the momentum of the branch snapping back into place, he cleared the space between the two trees.

The blond began to run _down_ the trunk of the tree, hoping against hope that gravity and momentum would allow him to reach Sasuke in time. As they neared the forest floor, Naruto realized he wouldn't make it, and that the leaves were hiding Sasuke's descent from Kakashi. The boy didn't have time to think, and he reacted on instinct, pushing off against the tree to jump towards Sasuke's still falling body. He _just _managed to grab onto the boy's ankle with his left hand and grasp onto a tree branch with his right.

* * *

R&R


	10. WaterWalking

**_Chapter 10: Water Walking_**

"You guys look bored," Tazuna said. Naruto and Sakura were sitting off to the side of the bridge, where they were 'guarding' the bridge builder. The old man walked by with a steel girder on his shoulder, "Hey, where's the other kid?"

"Hah!" Naruto shouted, "the bastard fainted last night, like a little girl!"

"What did you say!" Sakura said, as she turned to him. The girl held up her fist threateningly.

"Nothing!" Naruto said, he raised his arms in defense.

"Is he okay?" Tazuna asked, interrupting the two..

"He's fine," Sakura said, "just suffering from a little chakra exhaustion, he'll be back on his feet in no time."

"That's good," the bridge builder said. He turned to see Naruto had wandered off and was trying balance on the railing of bridge."Yo, Naruto! Get down from there!" Tazuna commanded. The blond-haired boy just ignored him, "Fine! But if you slip and fall into the sea, I won't be the one to save your midget ass!" he called out again. The genin, apparently having thought this over, simply demonstrated to Tazuna one of the more widely known ninja handsigns.

"Why you little brat!" Tazuna yelled, his face turning red with exertion. Naruto, having had enough fun, hopped down from the railing and casually walked over to the bridge builder with a huge grin on his face. The old man grumbled a bit before getting an idea,"Hey, grab a hammer and help out, kid," he said.

"What!" the genin yelled. "Why should I do _your _work!"

"Hey, come on," Tazuna said, trying to sound sly.

Naruto just looked at the bridge builder, mocking him with his eyes, "That's the best you got?"

Tazuna, seeing that that tactic wasn't going to go anywhere, tried something a bit more sensible. "Listen brat," he said, "the more people who help out, the quicker this bridge gets built and the faster we finish this thing, the sooner we get rid of Gato." The old man looked over at all the workers who had put their lives on the line for the chance to restore peace to the Wave. "Got it?"

Naruto thought about it, and it made sense. "Fine," he muttered. The bridge builder smirked in victory, but was thrown off by the devious grin that replaced the blonde's scowl

"Uh, Tazuna-san." Sakura said meekly.

"Huh, what is it?"

"It's just," the girl looked scared, "Naruto and power tools? Bad idea..." She was cut off by a shout of 'Shadowclone Jutsu!'

"_Really_ bad idea."

* * *

It was sundown, when Naruto, Sakura and Tazuna returned to the poor fishing village. "Um, where are we going?" Sakura asked, noticing that they weren't heading in the direction of Tazuna's small home.

"I have to buy some food for dinner," the bridge builder replied gruffly, looking straight ahead.

As the three walked to the market, the genin witnessed a man with a "will work any job" sign and a young boy stealing from some unlucky merchant. Tazuna didn't so much as glance at the shabby buildings or the poverty-stricken streets. He just walked on with that mask of indifference. Naruto though, it broke Naruto's heart to see things like that, to see people desperate for a chance, desperate for change, but no one willing to do anything. He was hit especially hard when he saw two homeless boys sitting on the street, heads bent in weariness. He remembered when he was like that, with no one willing to do anything.

_Cowards, _he thought, _not a single one of them is fighting! Not even one was trying to-_ It was then that he caught sight of Tazuna, the man's cold aloofness, that he never seemed to have before, becoming so transparent._ Tazuna... _Naruto realized, _Tazuna _is_ fighting... the bridge, it really means that much- _

"Here we are," the bridge builder said, bringing Naruto out of his thoughts. They had stopped at a building marked "PRODUCE." It looked shabby and broken-down. The man at the counter greeted them sluggishly as they entered and looked around. Both of the young genin noticed the scarce amount of vegetables in the store and the callous look on Tazuna's face, suggesting that this was a common occurrence within the Wave.

The inside of the store was dark, the floorboards creaked and the entire room just smelled of rottenness. Paint was peeling off the walls and the clerk looked like someone who had given up on life long ago. Naruto could _taste_ the fear and misery in the place. And it was for this reason that he clenched his fists.

He hated it when he felt like this, when people were starving, when people were suffering, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Not a single person in the store noticed, Naruto included, but the demon container's eyes flashed red for just a few seconds, before he calmed down. Though, there were two people who _did_ notice.

One of them was a would-be pickpocket, who, afterward, decided that he would rather choose a mark that didn't have such a _menacing_ entourage. It would only be later, that the mustached thief would have any idea about just how lucky he was... or just what kind of fate he had avoided.

* * *

After eating dinner, Kakashi announced to Team 7 that they would be training the next day. "Tazuna-san has informed me that the bridge isn't worked on everyday," he said. "The workers who help out on the bridge, do it for free and because of that, they have their own jobs they need to do. In order to account for this, construction only goes on every three days. So, we'll be training tomorrow and the day after, then we'll be guarding Tazuna, then back to training for two days after that, guarding Tazuna again, and so on. Got it?" The three genin nodded their heads in confirmation.

Sometime during the day, Sasuke had managed to walk, albeit a little wobbly, down to the dinner table from his room. He had been sitting there when the bridge builder, Naruto and Sakura had gotten home. Naruto did not pay much attention to him during dinner, but now, as the five of them were simply relaxing at the table and he was contemplating what Kakashi would be teaching them, he noticed Sasuke's staring. The boy didn't look as moody as he usually did, and he wasn't sending him the usual "Uchiha glare," Sasuke was just _staring._

Naruto did the only thing he could think of at the moment, he grinned and flashed the dark-haired boy a thumbs up, simultaneously stupefying the others. Though, not a single one of them noticed the Uchiha's smirk, _Idiot._

* * *

"Today, we'll be learning something a bit more advanced. We're going to be learning to walk on water." Kakashi declared to his students. They were standing on the shore of a small lake near Tazuna's home.

"But, sensei," Naruto said, needlessly raising his hand, "can't we learn an actual jutsu this time?"

The jounin glanced at his other students, they seemed to be sharing similar thoughts. In all honesty, he _had_ wanted to teach them a jutsu they could use in battle, but Sakura's reserves were still too small for anything useful, and Sasuke hadn't completely recovered from chakra exhaustion. "Well... alright," Kakashi said, if competitiveness had pushed them that far last time, then... Ignoring the incredulous looks on his students he proclaimed, "I'll teach the first person to master this exercise a jutsu of my choice."

Sasuke was the first to try, excited at the prospect of learning a new jutsu. The Uchiha dropped into the water after taking single step, and then resurfaced, gasping and sputtering. Naruto, ever the eager one, joined him soon after. Sakura took a more intelligent approach, as she placed one foot on the water and pressed down. Seeing her sandal sink, the girl decided to send more chakra to her feet. When her foot finally managed to stay afloat and she raised her other leg to take another step, she too joined the boys in the lake.

"You're going to have to do better than that."

* * *

Naruto managed to drag himself to shore. He turned and smiled painfully at his reflection in the water,_There I go again, _he thought. _Always jumping into things with no regard for the consequences. _The blond looked up to see that Sasuke had also made his way onto dry land, and that Sakura was already going for a second attempt. He chuckled to himself, banishing away any remorseful thoughts. _Jutsu is truly the ultimate incentive_. He returned his gaze to the lake, _Alright then, I suppose I should get started, too._

Naruto dropped to his knees and clapped his hands together. To most, it would've been a meaningless gesture, as it was not an actual handsign, but to veteran ninja, it would have made the boy someone to keep an eye on. After all, a child using _Focus_? Absurd!

The ability to increase the potency of one's chakra was very much sought after, it's why demon containers were in such high demand, and a technique that could make a person's chakra stronger should have been well-known and often-used, but some of the first ninjas decided that an ability formerly belonging to monks and samurais was not worthy of their infinite greatness and because of this, the arrogant bastards discredited it, discounted it, and dubbed it 'trash'. They were idiots, really.

The Second Hokage, though, that guy was _not_ an idiot. He learned the skill at a young age and eventually used the technique to create his infamous trademark. After all, how many people expected someone to have the ability to use a jounin-level water jutsu in the middle of the desert? It was unheard of, and without the advantage that _Focus _provided, impossible.

So, in order to keep the technique alive, the Nidaime passed it on to Sarutobi, who in turn taught it to his peers. But, the generations of Konoha that came after grew up with the 'ninjas rock' mentality, and shunned most things that were related to samurais and consequently, many techniques that would be extremely useful to them. Heaven forbid they actually listened to their elders once in a while.

Naruto, though, had no such qualms. Hell, the boy was _raised_ by a warrior-monk. Besides, the blond always took whatever he can get, _whenever_ he can get it, still does. So when the Third gave him a scroll containing the instructions for _Focus _on his eighth birthday, he did not say no, and when the Sandaime told him the story of how ninja's didn't like to use it, it only sweetened the deal. Having a technique that no one else had, was a dream come true for a boy who grew up with nothing.

Actually, Naruto had been given a book on his ninth birthday, also, that had explained the finer points of chakra to him. It had taken special care to go into chakra potency, and was the sole reason he had taken the time to learn _Focus._ He remembered quite vividly what the book had said:

_While having a large chakra capacity is recommended and often essential to upper level ninjas, an increased chakra potency is usually more desirable. The size of a person's reserves determines how many jutsus they can perform before succumbing to exhaustion, but if the chakra itself becomes more powerful, less of it will be required for the same jutsu. For instance, a B-ranked jutsu could be used with the same amount of chakra necessary for a C-rank, a technique that would normally leave a person completely depleted could be used in quick succession. Though, some researchers believe that the risks for outweigh the benefits, in that people with increased chakra potency have been known to destroy buildings with the backlash of a jutsu gone awry.(See pg 324 for more information and comments from Yatsu Kotogotoshii) Also take note of the fact that-_

"Naruto! You're not going to master this exercise just staring at the water!" Naruto flinched and looked around wildly. He noticed Sasuke's and Sakura's looks of disbelief, and began to wonder how long he had been sitting there. Kakashi-sensei also had a peculiar expression on his face, and Naruto was fairly sure the voice that had called out had been his.

The blond shook his head roughly, hoping to clear his mind. He clapped his hands together again, and felt the familiar sensation of being filled up by chakra. From his crouched position, Naruto started sprinting across the water as fast as he could. Remembering the conversation that had occurred two days prior, he traced the path from his chakra pool to his feet.

He followed the chakra as it spiraled out from his center, and navigated the criss-crossing chakra pathways in his legs. His sandals were already glowing with energy before he started running, and it helped him to create a repelling effect with the water, but his momentum was doing most of the work. Preparing himself for what he knew would be both incredibly relaxing and exciting, Naruto allowed his chakra to flow out of his body.

It was not what he had expected.

Naruto thought that the feeling would be similar to what had happened with the tree, calm, peaceful, safe, but the water felt different. Oh sure, it was still an out of body experience, the sensation of being two places at once was overbearing, but the water felt... cold. The lake wasn't exactly boiling, but it was still somewhat warm, it had no business being this icy and... resentful?

Even as he began to slowly sink into the water, the blond did not let up on his chakra. In fact, he began to pour _more_ into the lake, and the more he put in, the colder it got, until _someone_ finally cracked.

_**WHAT THE FUCK? I TAKE A NAP FOR A FEW HOURS AND NOW YOU'RE FUCKING **_**FREEZING**_** US? HOW THE HELL DID YOU MANAGE TO PULL **_**THAT**_** OFF? YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN CIVIL AND GIVE ME A FUCKING WARNING! How about a 'Hey voice, I'm going to dunk myself in ICE! Would you like to try and talk me out of it?' No? WELL FUCK YOU!**_

Naruto snickered, _You were napping?_ The voice let out a... roar?

_**I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!**_

_Don't like the cold? _Naruto, now completely submerged, filed that bit of info away for later. He raised his head above the water and remained floating there. A minute of silence passed.

_**What are you trying to do anyway?**_

_Walk on water._

_**And you thought it would be the same as walking on trees?**_

_Yeah._

_**It's not.**_

_Duly noted. _Another minute passed. _Explain._

_**Gladly.**_

Naruto looked around. Sasuke and Sakura were completely focused on their task, though the kunoichi seemed to have much better control. _Quickly, please._

_**All elements have their differences, **_the voice began, _**Fire burns, earth crushes, wind rips. You made the mistake of assuming that the element of water would be like the element of nature, but it's not. Trees are not very powerful, so when something stronger tries to mess with it, it doesn't fight back, but rather tries to help it along in the hopes that it will gain some of that power. Water on the other hand, has no such problems with strength. **_

_What are you talking about? Water's one of the wimpiest elements!_

_**Wimpy?**_ the voice asked._**Is a tsunami wimpy? Is a tidal wave wimpy? Are maelstroms wimpy? **_It chuckled at its own little joke. _**Please, water has no need of your strength. Anyone who steps into a lake or an ocean, is insinuating otherwise. More than that, they would be mocking just how powerful the sea is. And it would not take too kindly to that. **_

_Really... _Naruto thought looking around him, _but the lake seems so peaceful._

_**I never said it wasn't peaceful, but do you really think it would hesitate to drown your ass, if you stopped swimming? **_The blond gulped at this. _**What you need to do is to not try and dominate, simply submit. **_

_**The Cyclops said that you had to constantly adjust the amount of chakra you were putting into it, but that's not it at all. Every time you let up on the chakra, you're pulling some of the water's elemental chakra up with you, this is a statement to the water itself, saying "I need your help, you are better than me."**_

Naruto mulled this over, _Yup, makes absolutely no sense, but I'll do it anyway._

_**Good. Now there are eleven tenketsu in the soles of the feet. We're going to send chakra out of five of them and pull chakra in with the other six, got it?**_

Naruto responded by closing his eyes, this time with a purpose in mind. He let his second mind take control of his chakra, let it push it to his feet, let it drag chakra back up from the lake. _**Stop moving, **_it commanded, and when he obeyed, he did not sink.

Naruto blinked, then he blinked again. "Hell yeah!" he yelled, pushing off against an invisible platform in the water, launching himself in the air. On his descent, he landed softly on the water's surface, causing a single ripple to expand.

His teammates looked over at him after his outburst. They all blinked owlishly at his display. Sasuke uncharacteristically brought his hands to his head and began shaking it. "Idiot..." He murmured.

Naruto let out a whoop and began to skip all over the water, effectively showing off. He tried to pull off a cartwheel, but didn't realize he didn't have any chakra in his palms until _after_ the fact. He flipped himself right side up once he was in the water, and was swimming up to the top when the voice spoke out, _**Hold on to the surface. **_Naruto shrugging, lifted his hand above the water, placing it flat on the surface of the lake.

_Wow, _he thought. _It's like holding onto the edge of a cliff._ Through shear upper body strength, the boy lifted his torso up above the water. He raised his knee so that it too was above the water, thankful that it didn't sink. Naruto stood up and turned to sensei and showed him the most maniacal smile he could manage. He placed his legs far apart and gave Kakashi a thumbs up.

Naruto's stance brought to mind someone else to the jounin's mind, and for a second, he imagined Naruto in a green jumpsuit instead of orange Kakashi disappeared in a blur and reappeared right in front of the blond. With a surprisingly powerful pointer finger, the masked man held his students thumb down, much to the confusion of everybody else. "Never again." Kakashi ground out.

"What?" Naruto stuttered.

The jounin showed no sign of his normally laid-back attitude, he was all business. "Never..." he allowed the threat to hang in the air, _Or else. _Naruto dumbly nodded his head, and just like that all the intensity in the atmosphere seemed to vanish. "Well guys," Kakashi announced, "looks like we have a winner."

Sasuke let out an enormous roar and spat a gigantic _Grand Fireball _into the air.

"Temper, temper." Naruto said, wagging his finger.

"Yes," Kakashi said good-naturedly. "Do try and play nice now."

* * *

Naruto and Kakashi moved across the lake, ending up on the opposite bank. Unfortunately for the jounin, Naruto would not shut up,"So what are you going to teach me? How to make a lightning bolt? How to breathe fire? How to _breath_ a lightning bolt?" Kakashi looked up and put away his book. "Well? Well? Well?"

The jounin said nothing, just flashed through some handsigns as a tornado of water arose from the lake. Naruto watched in awe as it grew bigger and bigger, until it swerved around and began to head straight towards him. It violently shoved the blond into the water before dissipating.

Naruto sat on his haunches on top of the water. If he had been anyone else, he would be screaming at his sensei for trying to kill him, but he wasn't anyone else, he was Naruto Uzumaki, so he just looked starstruck. Kakashi sweatdropped and did that weird eye-smile thing, "_Mizu no Tatsumaki."_

* * *

_Mizu no Tatsumaki _(Tornado of Water)Shibuki used it in the Attack on the Waterfall

Please R&R


	11. Time to Get Serious

There _is_ another scene added at the end, I forgot I meant to write it before until I began writing the next chapter. My bad, but the scene just couldn't go anywhere else.

* * *

**_Chapter 11: New Jutsu: Time To Get Serious!_**

_Snake for stability, Monkey for focus, Ox for strength, Monkey again, then Rat for manipulation. Rabbit, Horse, Dog, Ox and Bird for the finisher, Naruto thought. Mi, Saru, Ushi, Saru, Ne, U, Uma, Inu, Ushi, Tori,_ the young genin went over it all mentally. The jutsu should be working, he got the handsigns right, but it wasn't. The best he could manage was a small, floating ring of water that spun around.

_"Mizu no Tatsumaki!" _he screamed out. Same thing, a small, useless, spinning, ring of water. Kakashi was no help. The bastard was just lying down, braced up against a tree, sleeping with that damn book covering his face.

"Hm?" Speak of the devil, "You know, it's a lot easier if you try it while water-walking, because your chakra's already in the water."

Naruto stopped what he was doing, and turned around very slowly, his teeth clenched in frustration. His sensei had woken, picked up his book and was in the process of reading it. "And you didn't mention this before, why?"

The jounin simply turned a page, "Must have slipped my mind."

This sent Naruto into a long string of curses. "Stupid... good-for-nothing... silver-haired bastard! Suck a... rat-eating... ugly... faceless... CHICKEN-CHOKER!"

It took the blond nine minutes to run out of steam, and when he finally stopped to take a deep breath, Kakashi said disinterestedly,"I'm sorry, did you say something?"

Rather than go off on another tangent, Naruto jumped backwards to land on the water with a yell of indignity. He flashed through the ten handsigns and called out, "_MIZU NO TATSUMAKI!" _Rather than the useless bits of water he had created before, Naruto somehow got the jutsu to work, unleashing a tornado of water roughly the size of a tree trunk.

Kakashi, without even looking over at him, pushed off the forest floor with his back, dodging the blast. While in midair, he stuck out an arm and grabbed a tree branch. Using his momentum, the jounin swung around to land crouched on the limb. He didn't even bother to put his book away.

Still reading, the ninja said in an playful tone, "Now, now, whatever happened to teamwork?." His thoughts, though, were along a completely different vein,_ You still let your emotions control you, Naruto. You're getting there, but you still don't know what it means to be a shinobi._

Naruto stared, his mouth agape. His gaze drifted down to his hands, and then to where his sensei had been napping, and soon his shocked expression turned into a wicked grin. The blond let out a shout of victory and began to dance above the lake. His sensei settled himself on his new perch and allowed his one visible eye to drift over to his student, "You've still got a lot more work to do, you know."

Naruto's response was to stick his tongue out at the masked man. "You're just_ jealous_."

_Of what? _Kakashi wondered. _I taught him the technique. _Regardless, Naruto returned to where he had been practicing before, and began going through handseals again.

* * *

_Mi, Saru, Ushi, Saru, Ne, U, Uma, Inu, Ushi, Tori_

"Mizu no Tatsumaki!" Naruto managed to conjure up an enormous, swirling mass of water that looked like it could do some serious damage... if he could actually hit someone with it.

* * *

_Mi, Saru, Ushi, Saru, Ne, U, Uma, Inu, Ushi, Tori_

"Mizu no Tatsumaki!" The blonde's jutsu raised up around him, encasing him in a powerful barrier and protecting him from outside forces. Unfortunately, though, the water had no qualms over lashing out and attacking anyone who dared to step inside it. Naruto stepped inside it.

_Geez, what good is a shield that'll kill you all by itself._

* * *

_Mi, Saru, Ushi, Saru, Ne, U, Uma, Inu, Ushi, Tori_

"Mizu no Tatsumaki!" This time the tornado rose up high, in a protective circle, doing absolutely no damage to Naruto, but the water flowed straight up and would not bend or contort.

_No way I can attack with that._

* * *

_Mi, Saru, Ushi, Saru, Ne, U, Uma, Inu, Ushi, Tori_

"Mizu no Tatsumaki!" Finally, he had the jutsu down to an art form. It rose up around him, and would twist and swerve at a single thought. He managed to make it loop around in one direction, then suddenly veer off into a different one, before Kakashi told him to stop. "What's wrong?" Naruto asked.

"It's getting late, we're going to get Sakura and Sasuke and head on back to Tazuna's." When the two returned to the other side of the lake, both of the other members of Team 7 were able to demonstrate an exceptional grasp on the water-walking technique. Naruto merely waved off Sasuke's glare of jealousy, as soon as he recognized it.

"Now, now," Kakashi said in a placating tone, "I'll teach you two a jutsu tomorrow, I promise."

Naruto turned towards him, "Huh? Then why did I have to go through all of the trouble of mastering the water-walking jutsu so quickly?"

"Well... to get a head start, of course!" Kakashi said with some enthusiasm.

"Yeah right, I bet if Sasuke had been the first to do it, then me and Sakura wouldn't be learning anything." Naruto muttered dejectedly.

"Come on, Naruto, don't be like that, you know that's not true."

"Whatever," the blond said. He turned and began to walk off in the direction of Tazuna's home.

"Well, you guys heading back or what? Me? I'm hungry," Kakashi said. At the sound of the other's growling stomachs and their shameful eyes, he laughed, "Don't mind Naruto, okay? He'll be back and joking around before you know it." And he was.

By the time the trio returned to the cabin, Naruto was already trying to sneak a bite of Tsunami's cooking. Truth be told, the women didn't mind, it had been ages since Inari had acted that way, and it brought back memories of a better time.

* * *

It was dinnertime. Tazuna was trying to sneak a peek at Kakashi's book, Kakashi was reading said book, Sakura was trying to get Kakashi to reveal what jutsu he was going to teach them, Naruto was trying to brag to Sakura about _his_ jutsu, and Sasuke was trying to ignore them all.

And it was this sight, that brought a little boy's blood to a boil. A little boy who had lost his father, and learned of the cruelties of the world, at a very young age. "Why are you all trying so hard?" he shouted.

Naruto turned and looked at him, "What this, now?"

"You can't beat Gato's men, no matter how hard you train!" Inari screamed, "No matter what you do, no matter what you say you're going to do, the weak are always going to lose to the strong! You're all gonna DIE!" Having stunned all of the inhabitants of the house, the last thing Inari expected to happen was be patronized by that carefree idiot.

"Shut up," Naruto said. His voice was low and the blond's normally cheerful demeanor, didn't look so cheerful anymore, he looked positively dangerous. "What do you know about anything?"

Ignoring all the warning bells in his head, Inari went right on and yelled at him,"You shut up! It pisses me off just to look at you! You don't know anything about this country, and yet, you come in here and talk about fighting and training, when in the end, none of it'll do any good! I'm not like you! You're someone who doesn't know any real pain and doesn't have any real troubles!"

Naruto's head was bent over, and his headband shadowed his eyes, "Well, look at you," he said mockingly. "Poor little Inari, the lead role in his own little tragedy. All he ever does is scream and cry. Hell of a story, if you ask me. Nice setting, good plot, horrible main character, though, but what can you do?" Naruto shrugged at the last line. "Oh yeah..." he said, false realization in his voice. The blond's eyes turned dark, "You can stop crying like a little bitch and man up!"

"That's enough, Naruto!" Sakura yelled. She stood up and looked over at Tazuna's grandson, who was glaring at the blond. "You went too far!"

Naruto ignored her and went right on, in a high-pitched, singsong voice, "Oh me! Oh my! All he ever does is cry! Oh gee! Oh no! Oh please Inari, don't go!" Inari was shaking now, obviously from rage. "Why fight? Why try?"-Naruto's voice became a perfect imitation of the bridge builder's grandson's-"When you're all just gonna die? Go ahead, go run, I don't back down from anyone." At this Naruto crossed his arms in front of him, eliciting a mangled sob from Inari and causing him to run out of the room.

"NARUTO!" Sakura screamed, "What's wrong with you?" The blond in question, spared the girl a single glance, before flinging himself into his seat.

Kakashi, however, turned his head towards Tazuna. "Are we missing something?" Tazuna took a long swig from his bottle and looked like he was getting ready to speak. Sakura sat down, wanting to know what was going on. Naruto seemed not to care, but his curiosity was evident in his eyes.

The bridge guilder began to tell the tale of the day three boys tried to drown Inari, and of how a fisherman named Kaiza saved him. He told them how Inari came to look at Kaiza as a father and about the time Kaiza saved the village from a flood. Then he told them of the only time someone dared to stand up to Gatou, and the resulting aftermath.

After Tazuna finished his story, Naruto was silent. He said nothing as he got up and walked out the door, to, presumably, do whatever it is that Naruto does when he's alone.

* * *

It was later that night when Kakashi decided to stop by Inari's room to talk to the boy. But as he neared, he heard voices from inside, one of which was unmistakeably Sasuke's. He noticed that the door was slightly ajar, as if someone had just walked in.

"Don't ever run away," The Uchiha's voice was a dark and as distant as ever, but something about it seemed different,"don't ever hide... and never stop fighting."

"W-what are you talking about?" That was Inari, he sounded confused.

"If you try to get away, and you somehow succeed..." the jounin had never heard Sasuke's voice sound so full of pain, "you'll begin to regret living while everyone else is dead."

Well, this certainly made things even _more_ complicated, Kakashi thought. He was originally under the impression that all he had to deal with was an angst-ridden teen, hell-bent on revenge. Now, it appears, he has to deal with an angst-ridden teen, hell-bent on revenge, with suicidal thoughts. Perfect.

A quick Invisibility Jutsu, had the last Uchiha leaving the room oblivious to his sensei's presence. _And I so wanted to give my cool speech, too. This totally ruins the emotional impact_. The jounin looked as if he was just going to walk away, but then, _Whatever_. He knocked on the door softly, but it was loud enough for Inari to know that he was coming in, whether he wanted him to, or not.

When Kakashi walked in, he saw that Inari had moved outside. "Can I join you?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he walked over and sat down beside him. The balcony had an excellent view of Tazuna's bridge, and the two spent a while simply enjoying the sight.

"Naruto didn't mean any harm by what he said," Kakashi began. "Sometimes, he just doesn't think, and says the first thing to come to his mind." Inari was unresponsive, but Kakashi went on. "Your grandfather told us about your father and I think you should know that Naruto's just like you." This caught the boy's attention.

"He too grew up without a father, or a mother for that matter, but eventually found someone to fill the gap. And his new father was murdered, too, just like yours." The bridge builder's grandson's eyes were wide, and he looked stunned. "The difference between you two is that Naruto already got revenge, and now he doesn't have a target, or anyone to blame.

"He doesn't even have a single friend in our village, but... I've never seen him cry or complain, not even once. He's always trying his hardest to get people to notice him, or to simply acknowledge his existence. He probably just got tired of crying, and decided to do something about it." Kakashi looked over again at the bridge, "Naruto understands what it means to be strong, and whether you like it or not, it probably came from him telling himself the same things he told you, over and over again.

"Naruto's not like other people. He's never really been encouraged or treated kindly, and as sick as it sounds, he's learned to thrive on pain and adversity, so he expects everyone else to be the same. It's rare for him to have to deal with other people's emotions, or other people in general, so please, forgive his... bluntness, it's just the way he is.." A look of understanding crossed Inari's face, and he too began to stare off into the distance.

* * *

I was on the shore of the lake the others and I had been training on earlier. I've mastered creating the water tornado for my newest jutsu on top of the lake, but I'm still unable to create one on land. Well, 'unable' might be the wrong term. If I'm within a meter of the water, I could conjure up one of decent size, but any farther than that and the jutsu's unsuccessful.

Now, I'm trying out the technique's third ability. I can still remember sensei's explanation,

--_**Flashback**_--

_"This jutsu is special," Kakashi had said, "in that it serves three purposes. The first is the most obvious, the ability to defend. The swirling water makes for an excellent shield, but is easily broken by the more powerful attacks. Because of this, its second purpose, the ability to attack, is more oftenly used. The swirling waters that make it so suitable for blocking, is the same reason that it is so useful for offense. At maximum power, it can drill into an enemy and knock them out with one shot._

_"But the greatest use of the_Mizu no Tatsumaki(Tornado of Water) _is the speed at which it allows the user to move. The drain it would place on one's reserve makes it unsuitable for traveling long distances, but the way it can quickly take a person from one place to another, makes it extremely useful for battle. In fact, learning this jutsu is one of the basic steps for learning the Mizu Shunshin( Water Body Flicker)._

_"The constant spinning motion stops incoming attacks, the high speeds allow you to reach your enemies in a flash, and it is the combination of both that allows you to strike your opponents, quickly and decisively._

_"Though this jutsu is extremely useful, sometimes it puts the user at a serious disadvantage, because it can be avoided by most ninjas that have reached chuunin-level and many that have not. The chakra requirements also aren't that high, so it's only listed as a B-rank. It might be a little above your level, but I don't think you'll have much trouble."_

--_**Flashback End**_--

I've only got one problem, Kakashi never had a chance to explain to me how to use the jutsu correctly. So now, I'm was stuck trying to figure it out on my own.

"Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!" My yell echoed throughout the empty forest, startling some insects. The stupid bugs began buzzing, which I responded to by screaming louder, which was responded to by more buzzing, which I responded to by screaming even louder. Things can get kind of weird when I'm frustrated.

The thing is, all my attempts failed spectacularly, which means I've made no progress, at all. I already figured out I had to use the water-walking technique to stay within the center of the tornado. I figured that I would have to use the exercise throughout my entire body, in order to stay in the middle, but it's not WORKING! And not only that, but, now, the damn bugs just won't shut UP!

In my rage, I slammed my fist into a tree, causing the entire thing to shake. The resulting vibrations caused a horde of bugs to begin crawling out of the trunk from some hole. It brought to mind the jutsu I'd been practicing before we left Konoha for the Land of Waves. Before, whenever I had tried to use the Power Break, it had been unsuccessful, because I was supposed to break down muscle tissue without breaking skin. But these insects had carved out a home in a tree, and as far as I can see, they didn't leave a single mark.

I sat there for a while thinking about this dilemma, when it hit me. Just because I couldn't see a hole, didn't mean that there wasn't one there. It'd be difficult to get a direct hit on the ones on someone's face, and I wasn't too keen on getting anywhere near the ones that were a bit lower. But the human body has hundreds upon hundreds of pores, that was the one of the things I was able to pay attention to during class. If you can't get poison into the body any other way, sometimes the skin will work just as well.

So I had to get my chakra into one of the unseen pores and then what? Chakra can only affect chakra, I knew that much. Only spiritual energy may affect spiritual energy and only physical energy can harm anything that exists on a physical plane. With Armor Break, it was easy to use my own chakra to disrupt the chakra of the nervous system and pain receptors, but now I would have to separate my chakra back into its original forms.

That shouldn't be too difficult, because most jutsu required the separation. The hard part would be focusing and directing the physical energy once it left my body. Oh well, not like I got anything better to do.

* * *

Naruto awoke the next morning to his female teammate giving him a light kick, and by light I mean ridiculously hard for a girl of her strength. "What the hell, Sakura-chan?" he moaned.

"You idiot," she said loudly, "you didn't come back to Tazuna's last night."

"Worried about me?" Naruto asked, he seemed like he was having trouble breathing.

"What's the matter, dobe?" Sasuke asked mockingly, "Too tired to train today?"

"Not a chance, dicklips." Naruto had spent all night practicing, and, while he still required a little charge up time, he was finally able to do the Power Break with some degree of success. The blond sat up and observed his surroundings, and noticed that it was early morning, about seven o'clock. Sasuke and Sakura were there, but Kakashi was nowhere to be seen. "Where's sensei?"

"Late again!" Sakura yelled in exasperation. "I swear," she said, "he wakes up before us and does this just to mess with our heads."

"Why Sakura, I'm hurt. After all the trouble I went through to be here on time," sitting atop a tree branch, was their jounin instructor, "you go and hurt my feelings."

Naruto smirked, but not at what Kakashi had said, the Copy-Cat Ninja had chosen the worst possible tree to sit on, and with Sakura's temper... The girl in question walked over to the trunk of where her sensei was seated, "Where have you been?" she asked, "You said 6 A.M. not 7!" She pulled back her leg and delivered a resounding kick to the base of the tree. Following the sound of foot meeting wood, was the sound of something cracking.

It took Kakashi only a second to connect the dots, and the subsequently leap from his perch. Sakura gaped openly at the falling tree and then at the second tree that just barely managed to hold up its weight. Sasuke merely raised his eyebrows, while Naruto let out a loud, reverberating laugh.

Sasuke turned to the still-giggling blond, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Naruto asked innocently, his face one big smile.

"I know you what happened."

"I have no idea," Naruto said, playing dumb.

"Naruto," this time it was Kakashi, "What in the world was that?"

The genin sighed as if he was finally giving in. He turned his head side-to-side to looked around. Apparently content with his privacy, he motioned for Kakashi to bend over. The jounin leaned in closer to listen. Naruto raise his hand to to cup the side of his mouth and whispered loud enough for the others to hear, "It's a secret."

* * *

After that little episode, Kakashi created two shadow clones, sent one off with Naruto and the other off with Sakura. He himself remained with Sasuke.

With Naruto:

"So what did you do?" the shadow clone asked.

Naruto simply stared, did the jounin really think that after that performance, he would just give up the answer? Kakashi sighed, but the man seemed to understand. "So, how do I use it to move?" the blond asked.

"Hmm?" The jounin looked lost in thought.

"The _Mizu no Tatsumaki_!"

"Oh right, well just send chakra to your hands and feet to stick to the sides as you tell it where to go."

"That's it?"

"Well, yeah. What? Did you think that you would have to send chakra throughout your entire body?" Here the clone laughed at his own inside joke, "That kind of thing is easily jounin-level. You only have to send it through your hands and feet." The shadow clone was confused by Naruto loud yell of frustration.

With Sakura:

"Sakura, your reserves are still not as high as I would like, so in case of a fight, you will likely be the one guarding Tazuna." The girl looked slightly ashamed, but shook her head anyway. Seeing this, Kakashi's shadowclone went on, "But your control is better than I've ever seen before in one so young, so I'm going to be teaching you a distraction technique." At these words, Sakura's head drooped._ I'm not strong enough for a real fight, _she thought.

"In other words, a genjutsu." This cause the kunoichi's neck to snap upwards. She'd always been interested in genjutsu. It wasn't like ninjutsu and taijutsu in that, even if you messed up, it wouldn't leave any nasty scars or bruises. You know, looking good for Sasuke and all that.

"Which one?" she asked eagerly.

Kakashi responded with "_Magen: Jigoku Gouka no Jutsu_(Demon Illusion: Hell Fire Technique)."

Sakura looked confused at her sensei, "It sounds... _violent_."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, no, it's just- Never mind. So how do I do it?"

"Jigoku Gouka tricks the enemy into seeing a giant ball of fire descend from the sky. Usually, it is used to make them believe they are going to burn, but it can also be used on their allies. Either way, you'll be able to maneuver them into whatever position you want them to be in," Kakashi explained. "Now, this jutsu does not effect a single person, but rather anyone who looks at it. So, in order to cast this kind of genjutsu, you'll basically be reflecting light back and forth, through trial and error, until you figure out what exactly causes what."

Sakura, even with her reasonable intelligence, was having a little difficulty understanding what her sensei's shadowclone just said. "Don't worry, Sakura," he assured, "it'll be a lot less complicated once you try it out."

With Sasuke:

"Today, you'll be learning a little taijutsu. More specifically, _Konoha Senpuu _(Leaf Whirlwind) and the Pounce," Kakashi said.

"What? Why?" Sasuke asked.

"We don't have the time for you to learn an entire style, so I'll just be teaching you a few moves."

"No, I mean why taijutsu?"

Kakashi sighed, "I don't know if you know this yet, but speed is the sharingan's natural enemy. I mean, what good is knowing what someone's going to do, if you can't do anything about it, right? So, in order to truly master the sharingan, you have to become faster than anyone else. Learning taijutsu will help you to do that."

Honestly and truly, Sasuke had never realized that. He had always thought that after he unlocked the Sharingan, everything would be easier. He had never, not even once, entertained the thought that it could be beaten. "But don't worry too much about that," Kakashi said, interrupting his thoughts, "you're naturally suited for speed, so it'll be easier."

Sasuke nodded at that, it made sense. "So... Leaf Whirlwind and the Pounce? What kind of attacks are those?"

"Well, the Konoha Senpuu is basically just a roundhouse kick supercharged with chakra. The Pounce, on the other hand, is a running tackle... supercharged with chakra. See, for the Leaf Whirlwind, you just jump and send chakra through your leg to create a powerful kick. The Pounce, though, is a little different.

"It's actually a fairly simplistic motion. Run at an enemy, usually from the side and push them away with your arms and shoulder. It's great for when you're running and can't take the time to stop and use something more complicated. You see, by sending chakra to your feet, you increase your velocity, and by sending chakra through your arms, you increase your strength. By combining those two actions, you not only better your chakra control, but you gain a devastating attack. It's especially useful, if you decide to ram the other guy into something else like a wall or a fireball."

By the time Kakashi had finished his explanation, Sasuke was ready to kiss the man. The thought of sending his brother unexpectedly crashing into an electrical generator or something was very tempting. "I'm in."

* * *

_In a cabin hidden in the woods..._

"So I walk into one of my warehouses by the docks, and what do I find? Bodies! Four of them! Killed, slaughtered, by ninjas!" A very small man was glaring behind his sunglasses at another man, who was bandaged up and lying in bed.

"I can assure you Gato, _we_ had nothing to do with it," the other man replied.

"Oh? And I'm supposed to trust someone who calls himself the Demon of the Bloody Mist? What do you take me for?"

A boy, sitting by the wounded man's bedside, disappeared in a flash and reappeared near the corrupt business man. "And what exactly do you take _us _for?" The small man flinched. "We do not waste that which is useful to us, Gato, and for now, you are still useful." The boy's normally smooth voice rippled with contempt, "But continue to accuse us of that which we did not do, and you _will_ find yourself... expendable."

The one known as Gato stumbled back a bit, his malicious and commanding facade completely shattered by the fourteen year old boy. It was replaced, instead, by a stuttering, shifty-eyed rat, "I-I want you two to find out who did it! I-it's probably one of the ninjas Tazuna hired, I want them taken care of!"

Zabuza seemed to smirk with satisfaction beneath his sheets, "Haku, take care of it."

The boy looked over at his master, "Are you sure?"

"I said go!" With that, Haku disappeared in a swirl of wind, along with a mask lying on the bedside table.

Gato regained his composure once the fake hunter-nin left the room and began to stalk over to the masked man's bedside with a devious smile on his face. But before he could take three steps, Zabuza sat up. The ex-mist ninja looked over at the greedy business man and picked up the kunai he had hidden between his sheets, "Was there anything else?" The shipping magnate shook his head before fleeing the room, bodyguards in tow, a dark chuckle following him all the way out.

* * *

Wooo! Finally done, Inari gets checked, Naruto loses his temper, Team 7 begins training and new jutsu are introduced. All in all a pretty good chapter.

Mizu no Tatsumaki(Tornado of Water) Used by Shibuki on the Attack on the Hidden Waterfall Village

Mizu Shunshin(Water Body Flicker)- A jutsu I made up to go along with the Mizu no Tatsumaki, based on regular Shunshin

Power Break-FFX In the game it lowered an enemy's attack

Armor Break-FFX In the game it lowered an enemy's defense

Magen: Jigoku Gouka no Jutsu(Demonic Illusion: Hell Fire Technique) Akadou Yoroi used it in the anime

Konoha Senpuu(Leaf Whirlwind) used by Lee and Gai

Pounce- WWE The finisher of a wrestler call Marcus Cor Von Note: When done correctly, it looks badass

As always, R&R


	12. Vigilante

I know Naruto seems like he's the same, and that he's coming off as the same guy he was, except with a temper problem, but that's only because the training thing took a lot longer than I thought it would. Specifically, three chapters longer, this was originally supposed to be chapter 9. Anyway, onwards.

* * *

_**Chapter 12: The Vigilante**_

--

Seven years ago, an eight year old boy vowed to serve a man named Zabuza. The boy pledged his life to Zabuza, even going so far as to call himself a tool, saying he only existed to serve his master. His name was Haku.

In the seven years since he made his pledge, Haku had grown into a fine shinobi. The boy was no longer a tool, but a weapon, sharp and deadly. Trained by one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, backed by a nearly unstoppable bloodline, Haku feared no one.

But the boy was not arrogant, quite the contrary, really. Haku had a love for all life, as well as an undying urge to protect those who were 'precious' to him, namely Momochi Zabuza. Those two things often conflicted.

All of the missions that Zabuza chose to take on involved bloodshed, and sometimes Haku was forced to intervene. Haku liked it when he was forced to intervene.

The boy was not a sadist, he did not enjoy causing pain, he did not enjoy killing. But he was able to put many of his opponents in a death-like state, when as they fought, able to spare the lives of those that Zabuza would have otherwise killed for no reason other than to kill them.

Haku often wondered what would happen if his master ever found out.

--

The scene of the crime was bloody and the corpses of the victims had been brutalized. The bodies of the smugglers had been sliced open, probably with a kunai, and stuffed with the very drugs that they were smuggling.

From the lack of defensive wounds, and the fact that not one of the victims had drawn a weapon, Haku deduced that the perpetrator's attack had come unexpectedly and without warning. But, the warehouse had been heavily guarded, meaning that whoever had infiltrated it, had extensive training in stealth and assassination.

In a word, ninjas.

And the only other ninjas that Haku knew of that were not only in the area, but were also involved with Gato, were the leaf-nins. He doubted that any of the genin had what it took to kill, especially since the victims had not been a threat to them. That being said, there was only one suspect left: Kakashi Hatake.

Now, Haku held no illusions over his skills. His master often bragged to his opponents that Haku was stronger than him, and though, the ice-user could, in theory, defeat Zabuza, the swordsman held an advantage over him that he could only _hope_ to overcome: experience. And when it came to shinobi like Kakashi, experience makes all the difference. It would be unwise to challenge a man he knew he could not beat.

But there was one thing that still troubled the ice-user, something that made no sense: the Copy-Nin did not have a motive.

If the bridge builder had only had enough money to hire a genin team, there was no way he could have ordered an assassination. And even if he had, the bridge builder would have wanted _Gato_ dead, not some insignificant drug dealer.

"There's something foul about this."

--

Team Seven arrived back at Tazuna's place at dinnertime. After a long day of training, the jounin of the group could honestly say that he was satisfied with his student's progress.

Sasuke, even without his sharingan, had already mastered the two taijutsu techniques he had taught him. And, Kakashi noted proudly, the Uchiha was already taking his advice, beginning to work on speed training.

Sakura, apparently, had found that the _Jigoku Gouka_ took too much chakra for her to use more than once. So, the girl had decided to change the genjutsu into something simpler, and now, rather than one enormous fireball, the new illusion consisted of many smaller fireballs raining from the sky.

Naruto's progress, however, had been the most disappointing. Sure, when properly motivated, the boy could pull off his jutsu with astounding precision and power, but that was just it, when properly motivated.

In order to use the technique to its fullest, Naruto had to be angry, or afraid, or experiencing some kind of extreme emotion, which was a liability for a shinobi. The blond also had to be within a meter of the water, further handicapping his use of the jutsu.

Kakashi's thoughts were interrupted by Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter. "There was some kind of commotion down by the peir, today," she said.

"Oh?" the jounin asked, "What happened?"

The woman took a deep breath and looked over at her son, "Gato's men were running around near the warehouses. They were talking about a murder." Everyone in the room glanced at Inari, who, to his credit, only closed his eyes and tightened his grip on his glass.

Tazuna kept one eye on his grandson as he spoke, "Well, it's probably not one of ours. Gato's bodyguards wouldn't care one way or the other about one of the villagers."

Observing his team's reactions, Kakashi spoke up, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't get involved."

Sakura let out exclamations of "What?!" and "Are you serious?!" but Sasuke and Naruto only glared at the jounin.

"It's not our problem," Kakashi lectured. "If it interferes with our mission, we'll deal with it then, but our objective is to protect Tazuna until he finishes his bridge, not to get tangled up in the problems of entire country. Remember that."

Sakura nodded glumly, while the boys just looked away. "Good, now get to bed. We have a long day at the bridge tomorrow."

--

Haku had been waiting in a run-down warehouse, somewhere in the middle of the small fishing village, for hours.

Of all the people that the boy had faced off against in his lifetime, not a single one of them would deny that the fifteen year old was a genius. After all, it only took the ice-manipulator forty-eight minutes to figure out that this was where the killer would appear next.

You see, whoever he was, the murderer was obviously intelligent. He, or she, had realized that Gato was a cowardly man. They had also realized that Gato was a rich man. And those two realizations led the killer to the conclusion that Gato must be heavily guarded.

So, the perpetrator followed one of the most basic rules of shinobi conduct: If you can't bash their face in, kick 'em in the balls until they double over with pain, and _then_ bash their face in.

In this particular situation, Gato was the metaphorical head and his henchmen were the metaphorical testicles. By killing the dealers and smugglers, the murderer was forcing Gato's hand. After all, the business man had already called upon his two most powerful weapons to deal with the problem, it was only a matter of time before he got truly desperate.

The warehouse that Haku was currently staking out was often used by the shipping magnate to house some of his more... adventurous subordinates. And if the mysterious ninja was acting as a vigilante, as Haku suspected, then that meant that these men would soon become a target.

All he had left to do was wait, and Haku was nothing if not patient.

--

A shadow slipped through the window that someone had left open in the old warehouse.

It had been watching the building for some time now, so it knew that, thankfully, all of the _heathens _had decided to stay in. This worked to the advantage of the intruder, as it meant that he could take them all out in one fell swoop.

He had heard about a group of mercenaries that Gato had hired to quell any uprisings holing up in a building down by the docks. These were the same men, in fact, that had murdered Kaiza. After all, even terrified and fearful as they were, village gossips, were still village gossips. It was amazing what kind of things you learn masquerading as a handsome fisherman from out of town.

The intruder smirked. Stealth? Recon? Espionage? He'd been doing that kind of thing since before most kids could read. It really _was _amazing what outward appearances could do to make people forget who exactly they were messing with.

The vigilante quickly sobered up at the thought. It wouldn't do for _him_ to forget who he was messing with.

Traveling quickly through the building, he quietly slipped into and checked each room, until happening upon the sleeping quarters. All it took was a single glance for him to get the all information that he needed, having developed a near photographic memory from a young age. Nine of the men were unconscious, four of which had been drinking and passed out. Six of them were playing cards, and the other two were polishing their weapons.

He grinned savagely.

_Not like those swords of theirs are going to do them any good..._

--

Haku had noticed the presence of the intruder as soon as it had entered the room. Luckily, it seemed that the intruder hadn't noticed _him_.

The boy quietly pulled out a few senbon needles from his robes. There would be no avoiding this kill, of that Haku was sure. He had no interest in convincing someone not to do good.

He had been about to throw his needles when he was struck by an odd idea. Haku had no doubt that these men were bad. They were loud, vulgar and took whatever they wanted with no regard for anyone else. Certainly, it wouldn't be _too_ cruel to allow the man to carry out his mission, as it would not stop Haku from carrying out his.

A yell of frustration drew the ice-manipulator's attention. One of the mercenaries had apparently been caught cheating, and the man in question was desperately trying to placate his peers. The other five had drawn their weapons and the two who had chosen not to partake in the game of cards only looked on disinterestedly.

_No, not cruel at all._

--

Seventeen targets.

The cheater was the first to go. His friends finished him off all by themselves.

That left just sixteen targets. 1-9 unconscious, 10-14 slightly inebriated, and 15 & 16 ready for a fight.

_First the bread..._

Numbers 15 and 16 were next. Their deaths were quick, but not without pain. Both had their throats sliced in a single fluid motion, perfectly executed. Deep enough to sever vocal cords, but precise enough that they would not die instantaneously. Rather, the men would slowly bleed to death.

No. 12 was the closest to them and the only one to hear, or maybe feel, the blood splatter hit the floor. Taking his eyes off of the huddled body of the murdered cheater, he turned to the to see the bodies of numbers 15 and 16. Before he could utter a word, he too was silenced.

The sound of his corpse hitting the floor, however, drew the attention of every other person in the room.

_Thirteen targets._

No. 5 was stirring. If the man awoke, it would only make things more difficult so the killer decided to deal with him next. Dropping from his position on the ceiling and landing behind the merc, he slammed the blade of his kunai into the side of the man's skull.

Ripping the knife out, the vigilante quickly leapt back up to the roof to remain out of sight of the others. He crawled along the walls, knowing that the men were not ninja and would never think to look up.

_Twelve._

The mercenaries were looking around wildly, obviously still half-drunk. Not a single one of them noticed the silent executions of their sleeping comrades, or the shadow steadily creeping closer.

_Five._

There was only one sleeping man left when the others finally caught sight of the killer. The pseudo-samurais began to shout, attempting to rouse the men who were already dead, but it only served to draw the vigilante's attention. This was the first good look any of them had gotten of him, so they were a bit taken aback by his appearance.

The lower half of his face was completely covered by a dark mask, while the upper portion was almost completely shadowed by the hood he wore. The hood was attached to a dark red jacket, that only allowed them to see the dark pants and black sandals underneath. His hands were covered by dark fingerless gloves bearing the mark of the Hidden Leaf, but that wasn't what concerned them.

No, what concerned them was the single blood-red eye that failed to hide itself in the shadow of his hood.

The man looked down at his victim, who had woken up at the mens' shouts but had remained paralyzed by fear.

The terrified merc saw the faint outline of a smile through the form-fitting mask.

_Four._

The murderer raised his gaze to those remaining, blood dripping off his face. He turned and sat down on the corpse of their comrade, and crossed his arms.

_Come little jackals, let me see what you can do._ His one visible eye positively _glowed_ at the thought.

"Please," one of the men began, "don't hurt us."

The killer cocked his head.

"We'll give you whatever you want," another added.

"Yeah," said No. 10, nervously licking his lips. "We got plenty of stuff: food, drink, money, women..."

The masked man didn't answer, instead reaching over to the crotch of the body he was siting on.

The first man to speak, No. 13, gulped, looking to his comrades for affirmation. "...Men?"

The killer laughed, and No. 11 screamed.

"Shut up!"

"He's gonna kill us!"

"What're you-"

_Now the butter._

No. 11 drew his sword and charged, still screaming. He swung and missed, only serving to lodge his blade in his dead ally.

The vigilante hadn't moved an inch.

_"Haben sie Angst vor mir?"_

"What?" No. 11 asked, not understanding a single word.

"Aahhh... I see," the murderer exclaimed, placing his hand on the man's shoulder. _"Du hast Angst."_

The killers started to scream. All five of them.

As one, the three who were on the other side of the room charged the cloaked man and lashed out with their swords.

But the man disappeared.

_"Dies ist... Gerechtigkeit."_

The masked man stealthily appeared behind the other three men, looking to take them all out before they realized he was there. Unfortunately(Fortunately?) his sneak attack was interrupted by a shout of warning from behind. It appeared No. 11 didn't know when to shut up.

The murderer turned around, casting his one red eye upon the man. Quietly observing him, he pulled a kunai out from his pocket and placed it at the back of one of the mercenaries, who had once again frozen under the intensity of his chakra. "You think you can stop this?" he asked, plunging it directly into one of their hearts. _"Sie nicht."_

_Three_.

"You never could."

_Two more._

_"Und sie niemals."_

_One._

The killer stalked his final prey, watching him quiver and cower.

"Pitiful."

The man was begging now, pleading. It was actually kind of funny, in a you-had-to-be-there sort of way.

"Truly pitiful."

_Mission vollständig, Hündinnen._

* * *

That was German, but I'm not German, so that's pretty random right? The first thing he said was "Are you afraid of me?" and the second was "You _are _afraid." The third sentence is "This is ... justice." The fourth is "You can't," the fifth is "You never will," and the last is "Mission Complete, bitches."

I would have done Japanese, but I couldn't find a sentence translator that I liked, and I hate using Russian letters, so German's the default second language that adds character; the romance ones are all overdone.


	13. The Assassins' Duel

_**Chapter 13: The Assassins' Duel**_

Many people believe that speed, precision and power go hand in hand with sneak attacks. Speed in drawing senbon, precision in taking aim, and power in throwing them as hard as you can. But really, no matter how fast you are, or how accurate your shot is, an ambush requires that your target is unaware of your presence.

See, sneak attacks operate upon the assumption that the enemy is unsuspecting. Therefore, if the enemy sees your attack coming, or if he's aware that he's in danger, your ambush has failed. And if your enemy discovers your ambush, then, depending on the target, one of two things will happen: A full on shinobi battle, or an over the top, ninja chase.

And generally speaking, people who have committed murder, want to escape from the scene of their crime as quickly as possible, especially if they're being chased by some crazy guy in a mask.

--

The intruder burst through a window on the third floor, not bothering to look back at his would-be assassin. Haku still didn't fail to catch the flash of red from beneath the hood, though. He felt slightly intimidated by it, but he wouldn't let that stop him. Zabuza had given him a mission, and he would not fail.

The boy chased the killer across the rooftops of the small fishing village, and had almost caught up with him, when the man spun around in mid-air and released a wave a shuriken. The sound of a vase shattering echoed in the night, alerting the murderer to the fact the Haku had dodged them. The boy in question had allowed himself to fall into a narrow alleyway to avoid the throwing stars, before pulling himself back up and over the ledge.

The killer, knowing that the hunter-nin had been forced to slow down, darted around the corner of an exceptionally large building in an attempt to lose him. Haku quickly caught up, however, and followed, but when he turned the corner, the murderer had disappeared from sight.

The boy looked around, but the man was nowhere to be seen. He had just been about to run off and continue his search somewhere else, when he heard the distinct sound of steel whistling through the air.

The ice-manipulator looked up just in time to the four shuriken flying towards him. He didn't have time to react or dodge, though, so he was helpless to stop them from slicing through his body.

--

The vigilante sat, crouched, over the edge of a building. For some reason he began speaking aloud, though his voice only came out as a whisper, "I didn't break that vase back there, did I?"

His suspicions were confirmed when the mist-nin's 'corpse' dissolved into water and the real Haku appeared behind him in a swirl of leaves. "You used the water you stole from it to create your water clone, then replaced yourself with it when I couldn't see you, right?"

The mist-nin remained silent until the hooded man stood up. This sight of him in motion, encouraged Haku to respond, "Kakashi of the Sharingan..." His voice was smooth, but still trembled with an underlying feeling of fear.

The killer merely cocked his head at the name, "So... you figured it out? How?"

"Your eye was a dead give away."

The murderer raised his hand to the left side of his face, "My eye?" The man let the question hang in the air, as if mocking the mist-nin. "Of course..." The sound of rustling was heard, and Haku assumed it was the sound of Kakashi placing his forehead-protector back over his sharingan.

"Am I to assume that Momochi Zabuza is still alive?" Silence was all that greeted him. "Find then, a word of advice, though." The newly dubbed 'Kakashi' turned his head to show that his hood now completely shadowed his face. "I would not let my guard down if I were you. Especially in the presence of an enemy."

Like lightning, the hooded man pulled a kunai from somewhere in his jacket and spun around, charging the faux hunter-nin. In response, the boy pulled a senbon needle from within his robes and blocked his strike. Pushing off each other, they both jumped back, 'Kakashi' landing on the edge of the roof, and Haku leaping farther back to perch on another building.

The two stared at each other for a moment, before the mist-nin jumped into the air and released a wave of senbon needles. The other man, rather than try and block them all, let himself fall back, over the edge of the building.

As he fell, he placed his hands, infused with chakra, on the wall to stop his descent. Turning around in midair, Kakashi maneuvered himself so that he was on all fours, and with one chakra-enhanced jump, the vigilante cleared the entire street and to land on the side of an opposite building.

Haku made to follow, but 'Kakashi' rebounded off the wall, meeting the boy in midair. Again their kunai and senbon clashed, except this time, when they pushed off, Haku leapt higher up, while Kakashi was forced backwards. The hooded man landed on a roof, and was just able to dodge another barrage of needles that buried themselves into the wood of the house.

Watching his opponent who landed on another building, Kakashi returned fire with his kunai, knowing they would be effortlessly dodged.. His true purpose was to distract the hunter-nin long enough for him rush up the side of the wall. But because he was so focused on taking down his opponent, he failed to notice the boy's fingers moving underneath his sleeve.

"Summer's Frost." The boy's voice came out sounding icy, and with it, his breath.

--

ANBU masks are specially designed with microscopic holes in them that both let in and let out air. Without these holes, the masks would cut off all air flow going to and from the shinobi wearing them, which would inevitably lead to suffocation.

Ninjas are almost always taking part in physical activities that require an enormous supply of oxygen, so, when they were just starting out, ninjas all decided that they couldn't have anything interfere with their breathing, and such, ANBU masks were born.

Now, back in the day, you weren't a ninja unless you had a mask, but, with the large amount of people becoming shinobi, the masks were eventually reduced to headbands, which were easier to manufacture. The only reason that the ANBU continued to wear them was a show of respect for the old ways of complete anonymousness.

After all they _were_ the Black-Ops.

Haku's mask used to belong to an actual hunter-nin. It had been taken from the body of his first kill, and while Zabuza had called it a trophy, Haku merely thought of it as a reminder of who he was: an emotionless tool, a weapon. It also served to freak out his opponents when he pulled this attack on them.

Summer's Frost was actually fairly simple. Utilizing his blood limit Haku releases an icy breath that freezes stuff on contact. The name, like the jutsu itself, was just a classic feint. Make the opponent believe one thing, when it's actually not true. Summer's frost insinuates a fire attack, and people don't expect to have to worry about breath attacks from some guy wearing a mask.

Poor Kakashi, he fell for it.

When he heard the boy say the name of his attack, his eyes were immediately drawn to Haku's hands, and because of that he was unable to dodge the jutsu. Luckily for him, though, it was a windy night, so the frost was blown off target and only managed to freeze his shoulder and part of his neck.

But, instead of just taking the hit like anyone else would have, Kakashi managed to continue his charge up to the roof of the building. When he reached the top, the hooded man tried to score a spin kick on the ice-user, but Haku leaned backwards in order to dodge it. Slamming his palm into Kakashi's chest, the mist-nin attempted to push the man into the streets below, but he was caught off-guard by Kakashi's second kick, which glanced off the side of his head.

The masked man was unable to stop his fall, though, and his back ended up getting slammed onto the stone roads. Because of this, he was unable to reorient himself before Haku's counterattack connected, and was forced to reflexively block the rain of senbon with his one usable arm.

The fake hunter-nin wasted no time and leaped to land beside Kakashi, forcing him to roll away. The hooded man jumped up and immediately ducked into an alley, hoping to lose the mist-nin and by some time. Running through the streets, Kakashi managed to avoid Haku for a couple of minutes, but he knew that the boy was still hot on his trail.

_I have to get him away from the village,_ he realized. _If I don't innocent people could get caught in the crossfire. _The vigilante slipped into the window of an old pawn shop, _If I can lead him into one of the forests around here, I'll probably have an advantage in the trees. _After taking a quick, inspectional glance around the store, Kakashi took a seat on the floor, his back to the closed window.

_But first, I have to get rid of this ice. _Raising his one movable arm to his shoulder, the masked ninja created a fireball in his palm. Taking care to not let the flames touch his skin, Kakashi began to essentially defrost his arm.

A few minutes later, the hooded man's arm was almost completely thawed and had gained near one-hundred percent mobility, but before he could do anything with it, he heard Haku's strangely chilling voice, "A rookie mistake."

The boy had given up all pretenses of hiding and revealed himself to his opponent, "Letting your guard down while in the presence of an enemy is most unbecoming of a 'legendary shinobi'."

"Yeah, well, funny story about that," Kakashi said in a conversational tone. "There I was, minding my own business, when this crazy guy starts chasing me around in a high-speed ninja chase. And, never being one to turn down a challenge, I ended up getting into a scuffle with him. Partway through our fight, though, the psycho decides to freeze one of my arms, so I had to lose him in another high-speed ninja chase. After I escaped, I had to find a good place to hide, then I had to thaw my arm out, using my magical fire jutsu." Haku could only blink at Kakashi's speech.

"_That _took a while, and then I got to thinking and I sorta... kinda..." Haku peered at the man expectantly, "Got lost on the path of life!"

Haku stared... and stared... and stared. _Is this man insane?_

"But, you know? This is most unbecoming of Zabuza's apprentice," the sound of Kakashi's voice shocked Haku out of his reverie. "I mean, really? How could you not notice such an obvious distraction." The mist-nin's eyes widened behind his mask "That's what_ I'd _call a rookie mistake."

Haku quickly flung himself around, prepared to deal with whatever trap the vigilante had cooked up, but was confused by the lack of a visible threat. Turning his head to look at his opponent, the ice-user heard a shout from behind him.

"Fire!"

Doing a complete 180, the ice-user spun around just in time to see Kakashi release a group of flames from his hand. The fire flew towards him faster than he could blink, making it impossible for him to avoid getting burned.

He did manage to raise one of his arm in self-defense, however, letting the limb take all the damage and saving himself from a fiery death. His eyes were blinded by the pain, though, and, taking advantage of the situation, Kakashi escaped through a window.

With one last look at the hunter-nin, the vigilante began racing through the streets and alleyways, before leaping up to travel across the rooftops. When he reached the edge of the village, Kakashi darted into the forests surrounding the small town, knowing that the mist-nin would follow.

--

Haku hated fire.

Ice jutsus are naturally weak to fire jutsus, it's one of the laws of nature. It took the ice-manipulator years of practice and training to get his kekkei genkai up to a point where the ice he created could withstand any amount of heat. Why? Well, because Haku _hated _fire. And this situation was certainly not helping.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

_Most_ certainly not helping.

After dousing his burning arm with a minor water jutsu, the fake hunter-nin jumped through the window of the pawn shop, not bothering to look back at the yells coming from above the store. Catching a glimpse of a red blur moving all the rooftops, Haku immediately gave chase to it, intent on revenge. There were a few moments where the boy thought he had lost his quarry, but nothing major happened to impede his pursuit.

It was after following Kakashi into the trees, that the trouble started.

Because it was so dark in the forest, Haku was unable to keep up with the vigilante. The moon provided very little light, and the shadows made it very difficult to see anything. This would normally not be a problem for a ninja, because they could rely on their other senses, but in those instances, the pursuer and the pursued were usually on equal ground.

Haku and Kakashi weren't.

The dark-haired boy didn't know why, but it seemed like Kakashi didn't have any trouble seeing in the dark. Whenever he thought he had the hooded man cornered, the vigilante would maneuver around the trees in a way that was impossible to pull off without the advantage of sight.

Haku sighed, because he just _knew_, that if Zabuza had been there, the man would have been laughing like the maniac he was. Because for the first time in his fifteen years, the ice-user genuinely wanted to _kill_ somebody.

--

"Fire!"

Kakashi's voice called out, echoing amongst the trees. Hearing the name of the attack that had burned him before, Haku reacted immediately, pushing himself off the branch he had stopped on to fly through the air. But when the boy landed, he quickly found himself puzzled by the lack of any sort of light, or burning, or heat, or anything at all that would signify a flame of some sort.

A dark chuckle, directed at Haku, resounded through the forest, "Jumpy, aren't we?"

Though it was impossible to tell through his mask, the ice user glared at his surroundings. Kakashi's voice seemed to come from all directions, making it difficult to pin-point exactly where the man was.

"That arm of yours doesn't look so good, you should definitely get that checked out." Another echoing chuckle. Haku knew that the man was baiting him, but for some reason, he couldn't find the strength to care. All he wanted to do was _hurt_ the man in the red hood. Nothing else mattered.

The fake hunter-nin's eyes widened at his own thoughts, _Zabuza matters._ Forcing himself to push back his rage, Haku managed to clear his mind. _I must not lose sight of my mission. _Relaxing his stance, the boy pulled out a few needles from within his robes.

"You will not defeat me." Haku's mind felt crisper, cleaner, like it had just come out of a _very_ nice shower. The noises around him were less muffled, more refined, and the things he saw all seemed more _detailed_. "I will not fail."

Kakashi's voice boomed out again, this time with a hint of respect, rather than sarcasm, "That's actually quite impressive, breaking through a genjutsu with sheer force of will."

Haku's eyes widened again, _Genjutsu?_

"Yes, genjutsu."

_What?_

"You were confused, were you not?"

The mist-nin calmly cocked his head to where he thought the voice was originating from._ What's going on? Is he reading my mind? _

"It's certainly possible."

Ignoring his enemy's words, Haku sent chakra to his ears in order to differentiate between the sounds of the forest, and noises that could be caused by a human, _Perhaps I am still caught in his illusion_...

"Trust me, you're not."

Tired of having his thoughts interrupted by a _very_ rude man, Haku finally spoke up, "You wouldn't tell me the truth, even if I _was _caught in a genjutsu."

"You're right." Kakashi's voice was still echoing around, making him almost impossible to locate, "I wouldn't."

"Then why would I listen to you?"

"That's just it, isn't it?" 'Kakashi' said, "You wouldn't."

_There! _

"Where?"

It was almost completely indistinguishable, but Haku heard a strange, vibrating noise coming from behind him, as if the sounds were somehow being distorted. Quickly ending the impromptu conversation, the fake hunter-nin whirled around and let loose a few senbon into the trees. The sound of rustling leaves alerted him to the fact that he had aimed true.

In order to avoid the needles, 'Kakashi' forced to leap into the nest of branches among the trees. His hood still obscured his face, and to his opponent, it was almost intimidating. _Haku_ was used to being the faceless one.

"Why do you hide your face?" the boy asked.

"Why do you hide yours?"

The self-proclaimed 'tool' didn't have an answer for that, or rather, not one he would give an enemy. So instead of pushing the issue, he reached into his robes to pull out more needles.

"Hey, how many of the those things do you carry around, anyway?"

The ice-user's eyes widened, the voice had come from _behind _him. Spinning around and lashing out with his forearm, Haku was disappointed to find that he had missed. He had earned a consolation prize, though, in the form of punch that left him feeling tingly all over.

Flipping in midair to regain his balance, the ex-mist-nin landed on his feet, but was forced to step off the branch he had touched down on to avoid a roundhouse kick. Utilizing his chakra, Haku planted his feet on the underside of the branch, leaving him hanging upside-down. The boy immediately began going through handsigns, but before he could finish, Kakashi jumped off the branch, onto the trunk of the tree, then rebounded off of it to interrupt his jutsu with a roundhouse kick in midair.

"Leaf Whirlwind!"

Releasing control of his chakra, the ice-manipulator allowed himself to drop in order to dodge. The boy managed to land on one of the larger branches below, but the impact shook him up a bit. Though, he was unable to fully recover from the recoil, he still managed to deflect Kakashi's follow-up axe-kick. The vigilante was sent flying onto the forest floor, but before Haku could breathe a true sigh of relief, Kakashi came at him again.

With _another_ axe-kick.

From _above_.

_What!?_

Haku managed to dodge this one by jumping off his branch onto the trunk of a different tree. _How did he- _Before the fifteen-year old could finish his thought, he noticed another Kakashi making a bee-line for him up the side of the tree.

Haku showered the hooded man with a rain of senbon, but the attack was easily avoided. His enemy pushed off the tree and landed on a branch, where he was soon joined by the _other _Kakashi. The two stood side-by-side, completely mirroring each other.

"A clone jutsu?" the boy inquired.

"Yes," they answered in stereo.

Wasting no time, Haku flung a handful of senbon at the two as they rushed him. They separated momentarily to dodge, but quickly regrouped and went in for a combo. The one on the left went in for a leg sweep, while the one on the right tried for a tornado kick. Haku jumped away, contorting his body so that he successfully avoided both attacks, but he was unable to avoid what came after.

One of the Kakashi's clapped his hands together and then pointed them at the ice-manipulator, palms facing outwards. "Water!"

A very small and very dense ball of water formed in front of the vigilante, but the interesting part was what came next. Mimicking the clone's (or was it the original's?) actions, the second Kakashi called out a different attack, "Blizzard!" The ball of water, which was still floating, froze and became a ball of ice.

_Could he... Is he... like me? _Haku found himself shocked senseless by the sight of someone using _his _kekkei genkai, but unfortunately for him, there was no time to for being shocked. The attack had only just began.

The first Kakashi took a step back, and then side-kicked the ice-sphere, sending it straight at the mist-nin. The ball of frozen water impacted forcefully with Haku's chest, knocking the wind out of him, and probably cracking a few ribs.

Before he could recover, the second Kakashi leapt up to the underside of one of the higher branches, and pushing off it, he slammed his elbow into the mist ninja and sent him flying downwards.

Unable to regain his balance, Haku's back collided with one of the more sturdy-looking limbs, and the crack that was heard as it happened echoed throughout the forest. It was unwise of his enemies to let their guard down, however, because his body vanished in a puff of smoke and was replaced by a log.

Before either of the Kakashi could register this, a hail of senbon flew at them, completely skewering Kakashi #2 and barely scratching #1. The second Kakashi's eyes widened for only a split second before he disappeared into nothingness.

Without sparing a glance towards his destroyed shadow clone, the remaining vigilante began jumping upwards from tree to tree until he broke through the canopy. He barely caught a glimpse of his opponent among the treetops, before the boy leapt down back into the forest.

Leaping up, 'Kakashi' allowed himself to fall past the upper boughs and dive back into the understory. Grabbing one of the boughs as he fell, the vigilante managed to flip himself up to perch upon the limb. Then, 'Kakashi' began hopping from branch to branch into the general direction of where the boy had chosen to escape.

--

Haku was hard pressed to survive the man's counterattack. Kakashi's style had changed drastically, going from direct combat to guerrilla tactics. The man threw shuriken all over the place, then ran away and hid in some corner of the forest, then he came back and began attacking Haku, only to then back off and run away again.

He was becoming irritating, weaving in and out of trees, then striking, then hiding again.

After a few minutes of this, Haku got to thinking, _Why is he moving around so much? None of his attacks are getting through, it's like he's not even trying, like he's setting up for some kind of... trap!_

Haku noticed the silver glinting in the moonlight far too late, because the man in the red hood had already stopped moving. With a flick of his wrists, 'Kakashi' revealed the countless wires he had strung up between the trees, criss-crossing in complex and intricate patterns. The mist-nin only had a second to contemplate just what exactly that meant before 'Kakashi' pulled hard on the strings he held and called out the name of his attack, "Spider-Web Ensnarement!"

Haku, not having the ability to do much else, found the technique's name exceptionally fitting.

When the cables were pulled taut, an extremely complicated system of twists, turns, kunai, and shuriken released countless wires, which, after snapping into place, ensnared the boy.

It was a two-step trap, the first of which consisted of creating a net or 'web' of sorts from the wires. The net then came at ice-manipulator from behind, leaving him nowhere to go but forward. The second step, made advancing forward impossible, as it involved Haku getting tied to the the web by the rest of the wires and cables. The strings were pulled into place, and pre-made knots tightened, making it impossible to escape.

One of the boy's arms were locked into place by his side, while the other was outstretched and constricted to the 'background' web. Some of the cables wrapped around his torso and waist, securing him to the net, while the others bound his legs together. His head and neck were slammed back, and Haku was sure that if it weren't for his mask, his face would have been covered in cuts and slash marks from the wires.

Unable to move, Haku could only watch as his opponent readied two handful of shuriken. _I must escape... now._

Once 'Kakashi' was pre-occupied going through some handseals, Haku began going through his own. One of his hands was free from the wrist down, and he was able to get the fingers to respond to the motions he wanted them to make.

Finishing their handsigns almost simultaneously, the two called out their jutsus in unison,

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

"_Sensatsu Suishou!"_(Death by A Thousand Flying Water Needles!)

Because he was performing the jutsu without an available water source, it almost completely drained Haku of chakra, but the boy was still able to form enough needles to slice through the ninja wire restricting him, seconds before his opponent's _ridiculously_ large amount of shuriken would have sliced through his _very_ fragile body.

Moving at speeds he didn't know he had, the ice-manipulator rushed at 'Kakashi.' _I must end this quickly!_

Kakashi, rather than charge Haku, merely waited for the boy to make his move. Ducking under the mist-nin's swing, he delivered a very powerful punch to the boy's solar plexus.

Haku tried to jump away following the blow in order to catch his breath, but Kakashi followed. The vigilante came at him with a flurry of punches, all of which were successfully blocked, but left a strange stinging sensation in his arms. Kakashi then backed off, panting heavily. _Is he tired already?_

Thinking nothing of it, Haku tried to punch the hooded man, only to find that his arms felt wobbly and _weak. _"What did you do?" The boy's voice was sharp and accusing.

"Nothing _too_ bad," 'Kakashi' answered casually, "compared to the real trouble that's going to start in... 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. now."

Right on cue, Haku's burned arm erupted in an explosion of pain and agony. Gritting his teeth, the boy managed to gasp out, "What did you do?!"

"Whatever do you mean?" his opponent asked innocently. After a moment, he seemed to perk up as if realizing something, "Oh! If you're referring to the weakness in your arms, well, it's a result of me breaking down your muscles to the point where you don't have any." The man's voice sounded positively _cheerful _as he spoke. "The agonizing pain, on the other hand, is a result of me making your pain receptors more... well, _receptive_. Cool, huh? It's very useful for torture and interro- Uhh, what are you doing?"

Halfway through Kakashi's speech, Haku reached into his robes and pulled out a painkiller. Swallowing it quickly, he waited a few seconds for the specially designed pills to take affect.

Rushing forward, Haku managed to catch the hooded man off-guard. Legwork was never his strong suit, so, instead of trying to kick his opponent, the mist-nin went straight in for a headbutt. However, the vigilante was able to recover in time, angling his skull so that he dodged the attack before it could connect. Then, using the palm of his hand, 'Kakashi' pushed the back of Haku's head down, forcing him to look at what he had placed on the branch.

_An explosive tag!? _Snapping his head back up, Haku stared the hooded man dead in the eye, as if to say: 'Are you insane, man?'

It was then that ice-manipulator got his first good look at the man he believed to be the Copy Ninja. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that the man he was fighting was _not _Hatake Kakashi.

"You?" And then the explosion went off.

--

_At Tazuna's cabin..._

Kakashi had been sound asleep when he heard the explosion, but by the time he woke up, he had already analyzed and classified the sound, deeming it a threat. Finding and slipping into his sandals in the darkness, he called out to his team, "Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura!" The three had already woken up, and were by his side in an instant.

Looking to each genin in turn as he spoke to them, Kakashi, the real Kakashi, gave out his orders. "Naruto, Sakura, stay here and guard Tazuna and his family. Sasuke, you're with me. No arguments!" The ninja spoke quickly and his tone left no room for insubordination. He and the Sasuke left the room in a flash, leaving the two remaining genin to follow his commands.

Moments after the two departed, Naruto turned to the kunoichi of his team and gave _her_ orders, "Sakura, wake up Tsunami and bring her to the cellar. I'll get Inari and the old man." And, too stunned to realized that she was listening to _Naruto_ of all people, the pink-haired girl immediately left to find the mistress of the house.

Before leaving to rouse the cabin's male inhabitants, Naruto created two shadow clones. Assigning one of them the task of bringing the bridge builder downstairs, and the other the task of getting Inari, he slammed his head into a wall, destroying and dispelling himself. The two clones, witnessing this, looked out the window of the cabin and whispered into the wind, "You've got about twenty minutes, boss. Hurry the hell up."

--

Naruto cursed loudly at himself, he just fucking _had_ to show off. He_ could _have made the fight quick and inconspicuous, but nooooooo, he just hadto go for the long and drawn out battle, and then follow it up with a fucking explosion!

Worse yet, that stupid hunter-nin saw his face! Not his full face, thank god, but enough of it. Blond hair and blue eyes were native to the Land of Lightning, and the chances of seeing two completely unrelated blond-haired and blue-eyed ninjas with a Leaf Village headband were non-existant.

The freak in the mask, if he hadn't already, would eventually figure out who he was, and if the kid started to blab about it... This was bad, real bad. Plus, Naruto didn't even want to _think_ about the fact that Zabuza was probably still alive. _And I can't warn Kakashi-sensei, either, _he thought bitterly,_ because if I do, I'd have to explain to him how I knew._

Pushing off another branch, Naruto suddenly flinched. A few hours worth of memories were all jammed into his head at once, and he almost missed his landing.. He recovered quickly, though, and immediately began sorting through them. _Nothing, nothing, noth- what's this? Damn it! Kakashi and Sasuke! I have to get rid of this outfit and get back to the house! _

Redirecting his route so that it would take him to the small lake near Tazuna's house, rather than the building itself, Naruto took care to keep his distance from his sensei and rival. Finally, stopping near a tree on the shore of the pond, Naruto pulled out a package he had hidden at the base of the trunk. The bundle contained his jumpsuit, and within seconds, he had donned the orange monstrosity.

--

_Back at the cabin..._

After shoving the bridge builder and his family into the cellar and telling them to "shut up", Naruto's shadow clone told Sakura that it would be a good idea to head up to the second floor balcony and keep watch. The girl surprisingly complied, taking with her a glass of cold water to keep herself awake.

Naruto then created eleven shadow clones, sending ten of them out to circle the perimeter of the house, and leaving the remained one behind to take his place as the 'real' Naruto. Then the first clone destroyed itself, sending its memories back to the original, or as he had affectionately dubbed him, the boss.

--

_Back with Naruto..._

After receiving the thoughts of the clone that had been left in charge, Naruto couldn't help but smirk at his own cleverness. Shadow clones were ideal for sowing confusion and chaos, even among one's own peers. His team would never realize that he had been gone, because he had, to their eyes, never left. Plus, the communication between him and his shadow clones kept him in the loop of the going-on's within the house.

Also, his clone had sent Sakura to the balcony overlooking the direction _opposite_ the lake, where he had hidden his clothes. So, she would never notice if he slipped into the ring of shadow clones and pretended to be one of the bunshins that had been sent out to guard the house.

_I think I'm a genius._

--

_Elsewhere..._

"So how'd it go?" A growl was Haku's only reply. Zabuza chuckled at that, "What happened?"

"The perpetrator was one of the genin hired by Tazuna," the ice-user said bitterly.

"Oh?" The swordsman's voice was curious, but it still held that ever-present tone of mockingness.

"It seems that you are not the only one whose has had his young hands have been 'bathed in blood.'" Zabuza glared at his apprentice, but it was ignored. "He killed seventeen people tonight, and if you add that to the previous four murders, as well as an unknown number of prior victims, the boy may have already taken the lives of well over thirty individuals."

Zabuza leaned back on his couch, one arm resting over the back, the other holding his sword, "Sounds like fun." After a moment, the jounin cocked his head, "Which one was it?"

"The blond one," Haku answered sourly.

"Strange..." Zabuza narrowed his eyes a second later, "Something's bothering you."

"He _burned_ me."

In that second, the entire atmosphere of the room went from relaxed to frigid, and the voice of the Demon of the Bloody Mist turned tense and dangerous. "Is that right?" he asked.

"And my arms.. have been weakened," the ice-user admitted.

"Weakened how?" Zabuza's tone was unusually professional. No one had ever injured his ultimate weapon before.

Haku stepped forward and held out the limb to let the man see for himself. And, squeezing the boy's biceps, Zabuza was shocked to find that most of the ice-user's muscle mass had disappeared. "Your burn?" The question came sharply, accusingly.

The masked boy pulled up the blackened sleeves on his other arm to reveal that his wrist, palm, and forearm area had all suffered third-degree burns, in addition to the loss of muscle.

"Will it be a problem?"

Haku shook his head, "I have some herbs that can help."

"But you won't be at one-hundred percent?"

"No."

Zabuza contemplated that for a moment. Haku had always been his ace in the hole, his secret weapon. If the boy was damaged... The swordsman let out a breath, "Gato wants the old man taken care of soon, so the attack will have to go as planned. We'll strike tomorrow."

Taking this as a dismissal, Haku turned to leave, but was stopped before he could take single step. Zabuza's voice rang out from behind him, "What can you tell me of the boy's abilities?"

Turning back, Haku spoke hesitantly, "He is moderately skilled at taijutsu, and appears to have a decent grasp of genjutsu." The effeminate ninja paused, recalling the details of his fight, "He seems to be an elementalist of sorts. During our confrontation, he demonstrated extreme control over the raw components of fire, water and..." here the boy flinched "ice."

Zabuza didn't react as quickly as you might think to the news. The man sat up _very_ slowly, every muscle in his body tensing and untensing. His face sparkled with curiosity, the same curiosity that Haku had seen when he had first shown the man his kekkei genkai. He spoke at a very leisurely pace, taking the time to savor his words. "This kid is proving to be very interesting," he drawled.

While his exterior seemed calm, in actuality, the swordsman's mind danced with the possibilities. Was the boy someone who could help Haku reach the next level? Or another potential servant? Mist-ninja were trained from a very young age to be able pick out treasures from the trash. They were taught to be resourceful, and to find the greatest of advantages in the most insignificant of things.

And Zabuza could already feel something in his gut, something that told him that this kid was going to be somebody to keep an eye on. "_Very _interesting."

But before he could mouth another word, the Demon was cut off by his servant, "Don't touch him."

"Ohhhh?" Zabuza's voice rumbled with realization and smugness. "Do I detect a soft spot?"

Haku slipped off his mask, and began to walk away. "The boy is mine."

The swordsman chuckled at his back, "Don't worry Haku, I won't break your new toy." The ice-user ignored him, not bothering to respond. Zabuza just continued to laugh.

Haku on the other hand, wasn't in a laughing mood. His reason for wanting to leaving the room wasn't irritation, but rather despair. Because, as much as he hated to admit it, he too felt something within the boy, a sort of kinship.

_His eyes..._ he thought sadly. The mist-nin had see the pain and loneliness buried deep within them, and it hurt him to know that he would have to be the one to put the child out of his misery.

_They're the same as mine._

* * *

Summer's Frost- A breath of mist that freezes on contact. Original

Fire- A fireball is created and thrown at the enemy- Final Fantasy X

Water- A ball of water is condensed from vapor in the air- FFX

Blizzard- Lowers the temperature of a specific area to to sub-zero levels- FFX

Spider-Web Ensnarement- A trap the relies on an incredibly complex system of wires, kunai and shuriken to capture the enemy in an actual web. Original

Sensatsu Suishou (Death by a Thousand Flying Water Needles)- User creates needles out of ice and directs it to spear his/her opponent-Haku used it on Sasuke

Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu- Third Hokage used it in his fight with Orochimaru


	14. The Devil and His Advocate

You know, I always thought that Inari had the potential to connect more with Sasuke than he did with Naruto. Just a thought.

* * *

_**Chapter 14: The Devil and His Advocate**_

It's a well-kept secret that Uzumaki Naruto made his first kill at the age of five. In fact, only three people were ever aware of it. The victim, Mikomi Shou, a witness by the name of Oujou Hishino, and Naruto himself.

Surprisingly, the circumstances surrounding the event had nothing to do with the boy's status as a demon container, it was simply a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

You see, after Naruto ran away from the orphanage, he spent the next few years living on the street. He moved from place to place, street to street, looking for any kind of home he could find. It just so happened that he wandered into an abandoned building one November night. He had been exploring the place when he heard voices coming from one of the rooms on the top floor.

"No way... enough... at least... Ten? ...crazy? ...worth five... fooling yourself... pay... much."

The sounds were muffled and difficult to make out, but after a while, Naruto got the gist of the situation. He figured out that some kind of deal was going down, and that deals meant money, and to a homeless kid living on the streets, money meant food, which meant that Naruto was going to crash a party.

Well, not exactly "crash". He was going to have a bit more subtlety than that, or at least... he planned to.

When he snuck into the room, Naruto discovered that there were only two men. One of them had a suitcase and wore a very nice suit, while the other was wearing a trench coat. The man in the coat looked like he was losing his patience.

"It's ten or no deal, Oujou-san. " said the man in the suit.

The man in the trench coat swiveled his head around, as if looking for something. "Fine," he said after a while, relenting, "but lets make it quick."

The two stepped forward, the one in the suit holding out his suitcase, the other reaching into his coat. Naruto readied himself, having already figured out that the bummy-looking man was the one with the cash. Then, he ran.

He'd planned on rushing Oujou and snatching the money right out of the man's hand, but the boy stumbled halfway through his charge. He tripped on a brick that was lying around and ended up sliding to a halt right in front of the two men. The criminals looked at each other simultaneously, distrust in their eyes, before turning back to the blond.

"What are you doing here?" the rich-looking man asked in a gruff voice.

Naruto mumbled out a half-assed answer, but was interrupted by the only remaining person in the room, "Mikomi-san, what's going on? Are you trying to set me up?"

The business man looked over at him annoyed, "Gato Corporation does not betray it's associates, Oujou-san. He's probably just some brat who wandered in here." He then turned to Naruto, "Sorry 'bout this, kid, but I can't have you running around mouthing off about this. It's bad for business."

Reaching into his suit jacket, the man pulled out a knife. Naruto, seeing this, attempted to back away from him, but slipped and ended up falling on his ass. The boy knew that this Mikomi was going to hurt him, and something inside him suspected that the man was going to _kill_ him.

"I'm sorry, I won't tell anyone," Naruto begged. His cries were ignored and panic truly began to set in when Mikomi took a menacing step forward. Pleadingly, he turned to the other man, "Please..." The addict merely looked away from him, shame in his eyes.

The one in the suit grabbed Naruto by the front of his shirt, pulling him up to his chest. He reared back the knife but was stopped by the sound of Oujou's voice, "Hey man, that's not cool. He's just a little kid."

Irritation and hope flashing in their eyes, Mikomi and Naruto both glanced at Hishino. But the blond child's hopefulness soon vanished, "So what? Look at him! He's probably just some orphan kid living on the streets, no one's gonna miss 'im."

Mikomi tightened his grip on his knife as he turned back to the unfortunate child, but he was again interrupted, "Still, you can't just-"

His temper roused, the business man began to scream, "Hey, if you want this kid going to the police, that's your business, but _I_ can't afford to be arrested, so shut the hell up, before I lose my fucking patience!"

Turning back to Naruto, Mikomi once again pulled back his blade, but, once again, he paused. This time because of a small, pitifully-sounding voice, "You're right, no one's gonna miss me..." Looking at Naruto, Mikomi snorted, this brat's problems had nothing to do with him, why should he care.

Swinging his arm, Shou fully intended to end the blond's pitiful life, but his blade stopped, centimeters from Uzumaki's head. The man could not explain it, but he suddenly felt inexplicably afraid, inexplicably... _submissive._ He found himself taking a good look at the child he had captured, and, for the first time, seeing what it was that had caused him to hesitate. The boy just looked so _sad,_ he seemed to be literally radiating pain. In fact, now that he thought about, it was almost like the blond was releasing copious amounts of... chakra_._

Mikomi dropped his knife, then the boy, and as soon as Naruto hit the floor, he began to slowly back away. "I'm sorry," he said, truly apologetic. If the brat had that much chakra now, he was probably one of those super-ninjas he had heard of, those child prodigies. _But... but that's absurd, _he thought._ He's only a kid, why should I feel afraid? No way he's-_

"Hey Mikomi-san, you okay?" Ojou sounded confused, and Mikomi had to fight off the urge to tell the man to show some respect to the youngest person in the room. "Hey, kid! Put that down, you could cut yourself!"

The drug dealer had only turned his attention away from Naruto for a second to look at Ojou, but in that time, the boy had picked up the knife that had been dropped. Turning back, he was surprised to find that the boy had already covered the distance between them and begun to speak, "Were you going to hurt me, Mikomi-san?"

Naruto's voice was that of a child. It sounded so innocent and so fitting for a five year old boy, that Shou just didn't want to believe that the kid was going to do something with the blade in his hands. "That would've been mean of you." That same damn tone, so sweet, so kind, and so forgiving.

"Can I be mean, too?" Mikomi's heart plummeted, the brat really was going to kill him, right now he was only playing around. "I've never been mean before, I wonder if it'll be fun..." Naruto's sickly-sweet voiced trailed off. "You won't mind, will you Mikomi-san?" And for some strange reason, Mikomi Shou found himself nodding, because for some strange reason he _didn't_ mind.

Ojou Hishino would seconds later go on to become the second person to ever be killed by Uzumaki Naruto.

--

_At Tazuna's Cabin..._

When the front door of the house slammed open, Naruto had already been prepared to see Kakashi drag Sasuke into the house, his shadow clones having informed beforehand. Sakura didn't have that luxury.

"Oh Sasuke-kun! What happened to you!?" Her scream rippled with worry, and did nothing to put the dark-haired boy at ease.

Setting his student down on a chair, Kakashi sheepishly answered her question, "Just another case of chakra exhaustion. Probably should have let him rest up after an entire day of training."

After hearing that, Sakura took to fussing over the Uchiha, but Naruto was not so easily satisfied. "Well, what did you find?" he asked impatiently.

Kakashi paused for a second, surprised that the blond had been the one to ask the question, "Ninja wire, and lots of it, an enormous burn mark on a branch, and some kunai and shuriken lying around." _No senbon? _thought Naruto. "We also found a half-melted snowball, which is kind of weird 'cause when we found it, we were nowhere near a source of water or civilization." Kakashi glanced at the ceiling and sighed, "I can only conclude that there was fight between two ninja going on, and one of them set off an explosive tag. They probably knew we were in the area, and that we would be drawn to them by the sound of the paper bomb, so they escaped before we could get there.

Sakura looked at her sensei. "Ninja?" she said trembling, the confrontation with Zabuza fresh on her mind.

Kakashi waved away her concerns, "I doubt there are going to be any as strong as Zabuza, but if there are enough of them, they might be even worse." Sighing again, he closed his eyes, "Let's just get to bed and deal with this in the morning, alright guys?" Seeing the trio of nods from his genin, Kakashi sent them off to their rooms.

"Sensei?" Naruto asked sleepily as he was leaving, "Should we get Tazuna, Tsunami-san and Inari out of the cellar?"

Looking to the kitchen and then back at the blond, Kakashi shook his head, "In the morning."

"Okay."

--

Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, and a very grumpy bridge builder left the cabin bright and early the next day. Tsunami had been left with instructions for Sasuke to take the day off, and Inari had been left with instructions to "stop being such a little bitch."

When Tazuna and the three members of Team 7 arrived at the bridge, they immediately knew that something was wrong. The day was much too nice for there to be such a thick fog, and there was not a single worker in sight. Taking a a few step forwards, Naruto and Kakashi were both assaulted with the smell of fresh blood. "Guys, stay close," Kakashi warned.

Moving further and further onto the bridge, the quartet eventually discovered the bodies of the constuction team. They had all been bloodied and brutalized, and many ertr still dripping blood. "What is this?" Sakura asked, quivering. The fog began to deepen and soon, the corpses of the workers were swallowed up again.

It was then that everything finally clicked for Kakashi, "This... this is..."

Naruto managed to finish his sentence for him, "the Hidden Mist Jutsu, _his_ Hidden Mist Jutsu."

Tightening their formation around the bridge builder, the Leaf ninjas strained their senses. Listening for the slightest sound, they eventually heard a very familiar voice echoing throughout the bridge, "I'm sorry for making you wait, Kakashi." The shinobi hiding in the mist began to chuckle darkly, "I hope you weren't too lonely." He chuckled again. The sound of laughing surrounded them, the technique not unlike the jutsu Naruto had used the night before.

"Hey Kakashi, look at the big shot over there, he's shaking like a leaf." Ha ha ha. "Where's your courage now, runt?"

As his voice boomed, seven water clones of Zabuza appeared, surrounding the bridge builder and his bodyguards. The clones all readied themselves to attack, and one of them, the one in front of Naruto, began taunting the blond, "Whatever happened to your confidence, brat? I was really looking forward to breaking your spirit."

Using a high-pitched mockery of Zabuza's deep voice, Naruto ridiculed the bunshin, "'Whatever happened to your confidence, brat? I was looking forward to breaking your spirit,' shut the fuck up." Smirking, the vigilante continued, "I'm shaking from anticipation you loser."

Not waiting for orders, the genin blurred, appearing in front of each clone for scarcely a second before returning to his starting position. The seven Zabuzas then disintegrated, returning to their liquid form. "Who'd ever be afraid of a guy like you?"

Speaking to his sidekick fifty yards away from Team 7, Zabuza murmured, "This kid's good, Haku. He's fast and seems to have no qualms about doing what needs to be done." Watching the bridge builder and the Konoha ninjas slowly turn their heads to his direction, Zabuza gave his commands, "Go then, I want to see what he's really capable of."

Haku nodded, and then threw a handful of senbon at his chosen rival. Naruto reacted to them before the needles were in danger of doing any damage, managing to block every single one with his kunai. He had been just about to counterattack, when Kakashi motioned for him to hold his position.

"It seems I was incorrect in proclaiming your death Zabuza," said the Copy-Cat. "Though, I have to say, I'm a little relieved."

"And why is that, Kakashi?" the shinobi from the Mist asked, words rippling with confidence.

"It's a load off my mind that _you_ are still the best soldier Gato has in his employ, I thought we were going to have to actually break a sweat." Kakashi's voice was smug, and his words succeeded in doing what he wanted them to, piss off the Demon of the Hidden Mist.

With a snarl, Zabuza moved to rush the man, but he was held back by Haku, "Allow me."

Kakashi relaxed his stance, seeing that the masked boy was going to be the one to attack. "Naruto," he said, "go." The blond nodded and jumped foward, clashing with the fake hunter-nin in the middle of the bridge, kunai to senbon. Haku then jumped back, and began to spin in a circle, kicking up dust and water into a mini-tornado.

Naruto responded by going through some handsigns and creating a tornado of his own. "Mizu no Tatsumaki!" he screamed. Using the water from Zabuza's destroyed water clones, the genin managed to create a vortex of water that was about the same size of Haku's, but much thicker. The two cyclones collided, and Zabuza's apprentice was forced to release his jutsu and retreat.

As soon as Haku backed off, Naruto stopped channeling chakra into his tornado, causing it to break apart, and water to fly everywhere. But before the liquid could hit the ground, they were already being reshaped for a different technique. Naruto was a bit nonplussed that, from what he could tell, the chakra wasn't coming from Haku.

"Sensatsu Suishou!"

Haku activated his kekkei genkei, changing the water in the air into the shape of needles, and freezing it. Then, every single ice needle flew towards a single target, a certain orange-clad genin. There would have been no escape, if not for the fact that Naruto could create a near endless amount of disposable clones. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he called out. Fifteen replications were formed, and they managed to take the brunt of the attack, only allowing one or two needles to scratch their creator.

Then the shadow clones vanished, leaving behind a smokescreen, and, before it cleared, Naruto threw two handfuls of shuriken at his opponent. After that, he flashed through the handsigns for the Projectile Shadow Clone Jutsu, causing his eight thrown weapons to multiply into eighty.

Haku simply charged the blond to counter, ducking under the shuriken and closing the distance between the two in seconds. He went through a stabbing motion with his needle, but Naruto ducked under it and came up behind him. The genin then tried to slash at his opponent with his kunai, but Haku spun around, blocking the knife with his senbon.

_What the fuck is going on!? _Naruto thought as he pushed against needle, _He shouldn't be able to use his arms, much less overpower me! _As the boy's mind whirled, his body struggled against the fifteen year old's unbelievable strength. "Looks like we're pretty evenly matched," he said, grinding his teeth.

Haku took a second to respond, and then said, "Yes, we are. But unfortunately for you, I am the one with the advantage."

Breathing heavily, Naruto questioned him, "Oh? How's that?"

"I'm much stronger than you are!" With a roar and a shove, the masked boy pushed the blond one hard enough to throw him off-balance. Naruto, rather than try and regain his equilibrium, rolled with the push, distancing himself away from the deceptively weak-looking ninja.

_No way... _he thought. _There's just no way! It'd be one thing if he had regained the use of his arms, but this..._

Growling, Naruto pushed himself to his feet, but before he could do anything reckless, something on the bridge caught his eye. He smirked as a plan formed in his head, and taking a deep breath, the blond called out, "Is that all? Man, you had me worried there for a second!"

Smiling mischievously, the demon container charged his opponent, who responded with a wave of senbon. They all made contact, but their target, Naruto, disappeared in a puff of smoke and was replaced by a bag of cement. Haku was already reacting to the substitution, turning his head to Naruto's new position, but he was forced to jump back to avoid a barrage of shuriken that came at him from above.

Cursing at himself for not noticing the shadow clone sooner, the fake hunter-nin only had to use one needle to dispatch the bunshin. But then he was again forced to move back, because the original Naruto created three more clones to bum rush him. The kage bunshins came at him with their kunai out, swinging and slashing. They continually forced Haku to retreat, never letting up for a second. Not a single hit connected, though, and all it took was for one of the clones to make a mistake, and they were all destroyed.

Returning his attention back to Naruto, the mist ninja was forced to duck in order to dodge a windmill shuriken. Rising up and settling himself into a fighting stance, Haku realized too late that Naruto didn't have any pockets or pouches large enough to carry the large throwing star.

_That trick again!? _In a puff of smoke, the shuriken behind the masked boy transformed into a Naruto. Haku tried to whirl around to counter, but it was too late, the clone came at him and punched him squarely in the face.

For a moment, it seemed like the attack hadn't done any damage to the boy, and Naruto soon learned why: It wasn't a boy he had punched, but a man, a man who went by the name of Momochi Zabuza.

The blond grinned good-naturedly, _Well, that explains a lot..._

"You brat!" From within the haze of the released transformation, Zabuza swung his enormous sword. The jounin felt his blade slice through something with soft insides and he let out a shout of victory, but when the smoke cleared he saw that it was not Naruto he had cut through, but the cement container. The contents of the bag sprayed outwards,covering the bridge, and temporarily blinding the large man."Haku!" he called.

The original Zabuza, the one that had yet to act, then disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing that _he_ was actually the younger ninja. Moving quickly, the real ice-user rushed to intercept his master's attacker, but soon found Hatake Kakashi intercepting _him_.

Haku pivoted, using his momentum and speed to whirl around the older shinobi. With a burst of chakra, he attempted to make it to Zabuza's side, but ended up ramming his own face right into the fist of a certain blue-eyed and blond-haired boy.

"Stronger than sensei, my ass!" Naruto proclaimed, recalling his first encounter with the masked ninja. "You're dumber than _I_ am!"

Haku wouldn't have responded to the jab if not for one little detail: he could feel his mask beginning to break apart. _But... how? _he thought._ ANBU masks are nearly impossible to break using normal methods! _The mist ninja's now visible eyes widened, _Could he have planned on sending his muscle destroying jutsu through my head?! _

As the last remnants of his mask finally slid off his face, the fifteen year old's look of disgust was revealed. "How very brutal," he said, grimacing, "I'm sure that would have made quite a mess."

Naruto took a step back, and Kakashi moved to defend him, but a silent signal from his student told the leaf jounin that Naruto desperately wanted to fight the the newly-unmasked boy. The Copy Ninja decided to let Naruto have his fight and instead stepped in front of the swordsman, "I don't know what you were playing at, Zabuza, but your fight is with me. Let's leave the kiddies to themselves."

--

Naruto mockingly beckoned to his opponent with a finger. Seeing that he had the ice-user's attention, the blond jumped away, making sure that Haku chased after him. Turning his back, Naruto ran to the side of the bridge, and then with a leap onto the railing, he dove over the edge. Not hesitating for a second, Haku followed him to his doom, jumping right over the protective banister and into a drop that almost guaranteed death.

For a moment, all was silent on the bridge as Zabuza and Kakashi stood speechless, and Sakura donned a look of complete horror. But then, a very Naruto-like scream cut through the air, "MIZU NO TATSUMAKI!"

An enormous cyclone of swirling water rose up from where the two ninja had fallen, one end still connected to the sea, the other, slammed into Haku. The rising tornado then pulled a one-eighty, turning so that the fake hunter ninja was below it, and then crashed itself into the bridge. Water then exploded outwards, covering the metal monstrosity in its entirety and spraying everyone within a hundred meters of the impact.

The chakra-infused liquid then began to recede, and Haku's miraculously-still-breathing-body was revealed, shielded from most of the damage by a skin-tight layer of ice. Surrounding him lay multiple sheets of frozen water, an assortment of icicles and a thin dusting of snow. Naruto stood above him, arms at his side, posture slouched, and breathing heavily.

"I'm not gonna hold back on you, just 'cause ya look like a girl," he slurred. _That was _awesome.

Zabuza observed the blond standing triumphantly over his apprentice. The boy was tired, no doubt even _he_ would be weary after pulling off a jutsu of that size and strength, and mist ninja were notorious for being stamina monsters. Zabuza tensed. _There wasn't enough water up here to pull that off, _he thought, _so the brat went and lured Haku into a trap. Heh... The kid was banking on his opponent being dumb enough to follow him, and Haku's smart enough to think he could turn the situation to his advantage._

Gazing at the assorted ice crystals surrounding his ultimate weapon, Zabuza smirked, _At least he had the where-resolve to activate his kekkei genkai, it probably saved his life. _

Readying his sword, Zabuza moved to engage Kakashi. The swordsman thought it better to take out the legendary ninja now, rather than wait for him to return his attention to the battle. But before he could move, Zabuza noticed that the brat he had just been thinking about, had struck out again.

Naruto had tensed his leg muscles, dragging up as much of his remaining chakra as he could, his last jutsu having almost completely drained him of it. This time, though, he didn't need the time-consuming handsigns or the loud war cry to activate his jutsu, he just _did_. The remaining water on the bridge rose up around him, and began to circle his motionless form.

The jutsu's true purpose then took effect, pushing Naruto off the ground and barreling him straight towards the Demon of the Bloody Mist. The blond was positively _gleeful_ to see the liquid he had manipulated turn gray, "Uzumaki Surprise!" he called out.

Increasing the force of his chakra, Naruto pushed enough energy into the water tornado for the recoil to eject him right out of it, while the cyclone continued on its designated path towards the jounin from the Hidden Mist.

Zabuza, however, was a veteran of many battles, and no _kid_ was going to catch him off-guard with such a straightforward attack. The bandaged ninja swung his sword, slicing through the gray and clumpy water, taking only a moment to wonder _why_ exactly it was gray and clumpy. "Nice try," he yelled arrogantly, "but you're not going to hit me with a move like that!"

Naruto backed up, casually walking away from Zabuza, and towards the side of the bridge, where the workers had left piles of tools and wheelbarrows. "'Quick-Drying Cement,'" he read aloud, picking up a heavy bag of cement. "'Special order from the Land of Earth: Just add water and stir! Dries the moment it is allowed to settle!' Wow! It says here that its use is highly recommended by Hatsubai of the Rain Country! And I quote 'This stuff is great! It really helps out here, where the ground is almost always wet!'"

As Naruto continued to read the words written on the bag, Zabuza's eyes grew wider and wider. When he finally plucked up the courage to take a look at his sword, what he saw was his worst nightmare: his precious _Kubikiri Houcho_ had been ruined, covered in cement , which had been dried and hardened, turning into clumps of gray gunk frozen in mid-drip.

"You... you..."

Uzumaki Naruto would later go down in history as the one who had defied the odds, as the boy who had the power to achieve the impossible. But, in actuality, it all began here, where he single-handedly managed to neutralize the two greatest weapons Momochi Zabuza ever had. Unfortunately for him, though, Zabuza had no way of knowing that, no way of knowing that facing Naruto would later cement, if you'll excuse the pun, his place in history. Poor Naruto.

"SON OF A BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Zabuza charged, his ridiculously large, and now hilariously useless, sword in tow. He fully intended on ripping a certain blond-haired boy in half, and probably would have succeeded too, as Kakashi was still shell-shocked at the blond's audacity, Naruto himself was frozen at Zabuza's sheer killing intent, and Haku was in no position to be saving any lives at the moment.

It would have been all over, if not for a blue blur slamming into Zabuza and knocking him into a pile of steel girders.

--

_Tazuna's cabin..._

Sasuke awoke to a noise not unlike that of something crashing. It was soon followed by a noise eerily similar to someone screaming. It sounded, he surmised, like someone had carved up the front door, but that didn't make any sense.

_Wait a minute... _

Thankful for the fact that he had fallen asleep in his clothes, Sasuke walked out of his room into the hallway. Hugging the wall, he slunk down to the kitchen, taking care not to reveal himself to anyone in the house. Sasuke peered around the corner, being careful not to make a single sound, and saw two swordsman leaving through the enormous hole in the wall, Tsunami bound and dragged with them.

But before the Uchiha could chase them down, he noticed the sound of sobbing in the back of the kitchen. Turning to its origin, he saw Inari, huddled and crying in a corner.

Sasuke sneered, "Coward." The child looked up at the older boy, eyes still teary. "Look at you, you're just sitting there, _crying_," Sasuke berated, "while your mother is being dragged away by two men who'll do god-knows-what to her." Turning away, he added as an afterthought, "Like some sad little character in some sad little play."

As he reached the opening in the wall, Sasuke just couldn't resist the temptation to have one last word, "But no worries, kid, I understand. This is the kind of thing only big boys have to deal with."

Inari, in that moment, hated the dark-haired boy for all that he was: smart, confident, _strong_, Sasuke was everything he had ever wanted to be. "It's not my fault that I'm weak!" he shouted, and then in a lower tone, "It's not my fault that I'm afraid... I just _am_."

Sasuke, in that moment, hated Inari for all that he was. The younger boy was everything that Sasuke could have been: weak, sniveling, _scared_. For the first time in years, Sasuke actually found himself thanking his older brother. _Is that really what would've happened to me?_ he thought, _Would I really be acting like that? I mean, if _he_ hadn't told me to grow strong, would _I _be the one crying in the corner? _On the outside world, Sasuke gasped, _Think of the fangirls trying to 'soothe my broken heart!'_

Shaking his head to clear it of his thoughts, Sasuke jumped through the hole in the wall, "Whatever, kid, just go and play in the sand, when you're ready for the big leagues, then you come see me."

Within seconds, the emo avenger caught up to the two mercenaries and stuck two kunai in their backs. Tsunami was untied and sent home, while Sasuke rushed to the bridge at full speed, which, by the way, is pretty damn fast.

* * *

Okay, I _may_ have gone a little hard on Inari at the end there, but honestly Sasuke doesn't really seem like the type to care whether or not he's talking to a nine year old. Besides, the way I see it, the only reason he didn't blow up at the kid in canon is because his own philosophy fits right in there with "the weak die, and the strong survive".

He's also probably channeling a little regret that he hadn't been there to stop his clan's massacre, and it's turning into anger at Inari for just standing back and watching his mother being dragged away, not to mention the fact that Inari's not doing a damn thing about revenge, when that's all that Sasuke lives for.

So, yeah, I went there.


	15. Team Seven vs Team Zabuza

For the language in this chapter, excuse my french(and my japanese, too, that probably isn't very good either)

And to WhatDoYouMeanI'mDrunk: I didn't really care that much, so I changed it back.

* * *

_**Chapter 15: Team Seven vs. Team Zabuza **_

_Last time:_

_Zabuza charged, his ridiculously large, and now hilariously useless, sword in tow. He fully intended to rip a certain blond-haired boy in half, and probably would have succeeded too, as Kakashi was still shell-shocked at the blond's audacity, Naruto himself was frozen at Zabuza's sheer killing intent, and Haku was in no position to be saving any lives at the moment._

_It would have been all over, if not for a blue blur slamming into Zabuza and knocking him into a pile of steel girders._

--

Step. Step. Step. Smash, clang.

_Step, step, step, smash, clang? I'm not dead? ... No, not dead._

Naruto opened his eyes to a sight he had hoped never to see: Uchiha Sasuke saving his scrawny ass.

"You're not hurt, are you?" the dark-haired boy asked mockingly, still standing in the spot where he had knocked into Zabuza, "Scaredy cat?"

Naruto didn't bother to respond to the taunt, and instead took the time to inwardly rant. _How the hell did he move someone of Zabuza's size? I _know_ he doesn't have that kind of strength, and chakra and momentum will only take you so far! He cheated! I know he did! _

Naruto turned his head to stare at Zabuza for appearance's sake, but kept the majority of his attention on Sasuke. _He could be another undercover agent like Haku, _the blond thought suspiciously._ Sasuke's not supposed to be awake yet._

Scanning the Uchiha's stance and body for signs of deceit, Naruto began to notice little details he had missed before. Sasuke was panting heavily, a sign of overexertion, and his skin was spotted with phantom bruises, a symptom of minor chakra exhaustion. That all fit in with his collapse from the previous night, meaning that he was _probably_ the real deal.

But Naruto also noticed that Sasuke's arms were at his side, held in such a way so that his muscles didn't contract or expand.

_His arms are sore... And he's obviously used some amount of chakra today. What did he- oh! That Pounce thing Kakashi taught him!_

_**--Flashback--**_

_"Well, the Konoha Senpuu is basically just a roundhouse kick supercharged with chakra. The Pounce, on the other hand, is a running tackle supercharged with chakra. See, for the Leaf Whirlwind, you just jump and send chakra through your leg to create a powerful kick. The Pounce, though, is a little different._

_"It's actually a fairly simplistic motion. Run at an enemy, usually from the side and push them away with your arms and shoulder. It's great for when you're running and can't take the time to stop and use something more complicated. You see, by sending chakra to your feet, you increase your velocity, and by sending chakra through your arms, you increase your strength. By combining those two actions, you not only better your chakra control, but you gain a devastating attack. It's especially useful, if you decide to ram the other guy into something else like a wall or a fireball."_

_**--Flashback End--**_

Naruto secretly smirked. He had no idea how Sasuke or Sakura, or Kakashi for that matter, would react to him using his shadow clones to spy on their training, but he had no intention of ever finding out.

Clank.

The other members of Team 7, as well as the bridge builder, rapidly swiveled their heads towards the origin of the sound. Zabuza, who had been splayed over the pile of girders he had landed on, had relaxed his hand and dropped his sword.

"Troublesome pests,"the swordsman said, glaring darkly at the two twelve year olds. After a moment, he pushed back some of the girders he had been laying on and leaned against them, futilely trying to relax.

"And here I thought this would be easy," Zabuza muttered, closing his eyes.

While his exterior seemed calm and collected, the swordsman's mind was actually already trying to work out a strategy. _The kids will be simpler get rid of, _he thought. _Better to eliminate them first, and then go after Kakashi. That'll clear the way to the old man. _

Zabuza's fingers twitched reflexively, instinctively preparing to reach for the hilt that was no longer attached to his back. Fortunately for him, that action was the very thing that saved his life, because when he was forced to remind himself that his sword was no longer there, Zabuza's mind slowed down enough for him to realize a very critical fact. _Kakashi's been in this business for as long as I have, he knows what I'm probably going to do, and even if he doesn't, he'll probably react in time to save the brats, anyway. I should make _him_ the target of my attack._

Seeing Naruto and Sasuke pull out kunai's to defend themselves, Zabuza decided that it was time to make his move. Readying himself, he called out _**"Suiton: Mizu no Yaiba Jutsu! (Water Style: Water Blade Jutsu!)"**_

The swordsman, moving faster than anyone but Kakashi could see, went through some handsigns and ripped a sword made of water right out of one of the puddle that had pooled near him. The blade was nowhere near the size of Zabuza's weapon of choice, but the mist ninja was just as skilled with it as he was with his larger one.

He charged the two younger shinobi, swinging his new sword in an attempt to decapitate them both with one blow. Neither possessed the speed nor the reflexes to dodge his attack, and, for a moment, they truly believed they would die.

Kakashi hadn't had to move that fast in a long time.

_No! _his thoughts screamed, _Not again!_

His visible eye widened with worry, and his hidden one narrowed with rage, Kakashi began to move. The masked man didn't bother with handsigns, and managed to form a ball of blue lightning in the palm of his hand on force of will alone. The ball began to condense, draining away Kakashi's reserves, but still the man did not release the jutsu.

_**"Lightning Blade!" **_

The masked ninja dashed forward, thrusting his fist outwards. Kakashi didn't have the time to uncover his Sharingan, so, at the speeds he was moving, he didn't have the chance to take everything in, all he could see was the water sword moving towards his student at what seemed a snail's pace. He didn't see Zabuza react, so he could not compensate.

The mist ninja had jerked his arm back the moment he felt the explosion of chakra from the leaf jounin. Before Kakashi had even moved, Zabuza had flinched, causing the leaf ninja's attack, which had been aimed at the elbow, to miss and instead slice the water sword in two. The blade exploded in a shower of water, pushing Zabuza back and unleashing a torrent of electrified water upon the Konoha shinobi.

Luckily, before any of the crackling liquid could touch them, stray bolts of lightning from the _Raikiri shot out, _causing the water to evaporate in midair.

Kakashi slid to a stop directly in front of his two male students, his arm still crackling with electricity. "Get back!" he commanded. The two flinched at his harsh tone, but refused to move. "Now!" he yelled.

Naruto and Sasuke looked as if they wanted to say 'no', but after a moment they nodded and moved to jump away. Before they did, though, Naruto reached over and pulled up Kakashi's forehead protector, revealing the older ninja's blood-red Sharingan eye.

The blond ninja grinned at his sensei and jumped backwards, giving the two elites their space.

Kakashi spared Naruto an irritated glance, _before_ returning his attention to Zabuza, which, unfortunately gave the swordsman time to prepare his next jutsu.

_**"Water Style: Aqua Jet Jutsu!"**_

The water that had remained on the bridge after Naruto's Water Tornado began to move towards Zabuza's feet. The liquid then began to rise up to his ankles, sticking close to the swordsman's body. The combination of water and chakra created a thick layer of water on Zabuza's sandals, giving the impression that he was wearing a pair of liquid shoes.

Zabuza continued to hold his last handsign, and then, with a burst of chakra, he forced water to explode from the back of his heels, jettisoning him forward. The puddle beneath the large man's feet stuck to his soles, reducing the friction between him and the surface of the bridge. And as he skated forward, Zabuza reached down, into yet _another _puddle, and pulled out another water sword. The large man flew forward, moving at incredible speeds that he normally could not achieve.

Kakashi, however, was not one to be easily surprised. The leaf jounin jumped straight up into the air, and then twisted around to face Zabuza, slipping his fingers into a single handseal. As Kakashi gathered his chakra, six small fireballs, from seemingly out of nowhere, began to circle him, and when Zabuza passed beneath him, he called out, _**"Ninpo: Art of the Flame Phoenix!"**_

The six fireballs then took on more definitive shapes, changing their forms into that of small birds. The 'phoenixes' then flew at Zabuza, each of them somehow managing to follow and hit the man even though he was still aqua-jetting.

_Water clone._

Kakashi realized it was a bunshin before the first bird made contact, his Sharingan having detected the jutsu's use. The Zabuza he had attacked dissolved into a puddle of water while the real one appeared behind him, water blade poised for attack.

"You're finished, Kakashi!" Zabuza yelled. The mist ninja swung his sword in an attempt to cut Kakashi in half, but the leaf jounin was too fast, managing to turn around and draw a kunai in time to parry his strike.

"Them's fighting words," Kakashi drawled.

The two then began to descend.

As they fell, Kakashi swung his knife in a large circular arch. Zabuza was able to react quickly and deflect the attack with his sword, knocking his opponent's kunai out of his hand. The mist ninja then brought up his water blade in an upwards slash, aimed directly at Kakashi's chest. The attack was in vain, though, as the other man's sharingan predicted Zabuza's counterattack moments before it happened, allowing the silver-haired man to avoid any damage.

Then, in a brutal assault, Kakashi delivered a picture-perfect roundhouse to Zabuza's temple, knocking the man's head to the side and forcing the dissolution of his water sword. The jounin then pulled his fist back, grabbing onto Zabuza's hair in the process, and slammed his knee into missing-nin's solar plex. The knee was followed up by an uppercut to the face, after which Kakashi unleashed a another barrage of punches and kicks to the mist ninja's head and torso.

Even as their feet touched ground, Kakashi's onslaught never ended, Zabuza never getting the chance to recover. The copy-nin swung his leg around, sweeping the swordsman off his feet. And as Zabuza lost his balance, Kakashi punched downwards, directing his fist straight towards the ground so that when his strike slammed into mist ninja, it did so with the force of gravity behind it.

Zabuza's back collided with the surface of the bridge, leaving spider web cracks in the cement beneath him and further injuring his bruised and battered body.

But Kakashi still didn't let up, raising his right leg up high and stomping down on Zabuza's chest, knocking whatever breath that had remained in his body, out. Then, rearing back his fist, Kakashi delivered another brutal punch straight downwards, slamming it into Zabuza's face with incredible force. The masked ninja then grabbed onto Zabuza's sleeveless shirt, and almost effortlessly lifted the large man off the bridge.

Kakashi pulled him to his feet, letting go of the swordsman and allowing the man to stumble around for a few seconds. The reprieve was dreadfully short as Kakashi, a look of calm apathy in his eye, backhanded Zabuza's jaw, knocking him away. The mist ninja managed to remain standing, but the bandages covering the lower half of his face began to come loose, blood trickling from the bottom of his right eye socket, as well as blood leaking from the corner's of his mouth, turning them red, even as they unraveled.

"You're done, Zabuza," said Kakashi, speaking with confidence and a little solemnity. The leaf ninja pulled three kunai out of his pouch and looked at the swordsman's stumbling form, fully intent on doing what needed to be done. "You attempted to take over Kirigakure, and you failed. You attempted to assassinate the leader of your village, and you failed. You attempted to live life on the run, in constant fear of hunter ninjas, and, yet again, you failed. So now you work for a swine like Gato, answering to his every beck and call like some kind of trained lapdog. "

Pausing in his speech, Kakashi took two of his kunai and, threw them at Zabuza, aiming low so that they nailed the swordsman's feet to the bridge. Zabuza let out a yell, but Kakashi looked on, apathetic to his opponent's pain. "Do you know what swine does to lapdogs that no longer serve a purpose?" He held the last knife in his hand, glaring heatedly at his Mist village counterpart.

"Zabuza, for all the crimes that you have committed, and for all the lives that you have stolen, and all the blood that you have spilled..." Kakashi readied his blade, "Zabuza, for all the dreams that you have crushed, your punishment... is death."

The Copy-nin moved to rush forward, but he was stopped by the sound of Zabuza's, oddly enough, confused voice,"Dreams, Kakashi?"

The now-red bandages surrounding runaway ninja's face and neck had all but completely fallen off, revealing his unnaturally sharp teeth. "You speak of dreams?"

Zabuza could barely stand, one of his eardrums having been smashed by Kakashi's earlier assault, throwing off his entire equilibrium. The jounin's kunai were the only things keeping Zabuza upright, the periodical waves of pain forcing away his grogginess.

"These useless people and their petty dreams?" The swordsman's uncharacteristically low voice suddenly took on a much more malicious tone befitting that of his title 'Demon of the Bloody Mist.' "They mean _nothing _to me."

"Is that so?" Kakashi asked, his anger evident in every movement he made.

"Of course," Zabuza said, speaking as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Why should I concern myself with the hopes and dreams of a dying people? I have a dream of my own: To pull off the greatest coup d'etat in history and become the Mizukage! Why should _I_ care for _them_!? No one, not you, nor anyone else, is going to get in the way of my ambition! No one!"

"Aahhh," Kakashi exclaimed, his voice filled with false realization, "but to have a dream, you must have a future: You don't." The leaf ninja narrowed his eyes, "Zabuza, you idiotic fool, your hopes will never come to fruition, and your prideful ambitions will never be achieved! You've sacrificed far too many lives, and killed far too many people! Zabuza! Today, your _petty dream_ dies!"

A new ice-like voice cut in. Speaking with venom and hatred, it said, "No matter how many people must be sacrificed, or how many lives must be lost, Zabuza-sama's dreams will _never_ die. They _will_ be achieved."

"Dude!" Naruto shouted, having just realized something he should have already noticed, "You're awake!?"

Haku, bearer of the Hyouton bloodline, was indeed awake. He had woken up just in time to hear the last few words of Kakashi's proclamation, the ones that claimed that Zabuza would never achieve his dream.

Needless to say, the boy was not pleased.

_**"Hyouton: Makyou Hyoushou! (Demonic Ice Crystal Mirrors!)"**_

The bridge in front of Haku cracked, creating a small hole on the surface. From within the hole a stream of water vapor rose up, eventually solidifying itself into the form of a sheet of ice.

A similar crack appeared in front of Kakashi, and from within it arose a similar ice formation.

Haku jumped into the mirror in front of him and disappeared, reappearing in the mirror in front of the Copy-nin. The ice manipulator chose not to step out of the mirror, and instead merely thrust his head forward enough so that his face emerged from it.

_**"Summer's Frost..."**_

Haku took a deep breath, expanding his lungs, and then released it, making the air in front of him turn white with cold. Kakashi immediately recognized the move as a potential threat, so he jumped back, releasing a few shuriken and taking care to not let any of the strange mist touch him.

The throwing stars passed right through the mist, freezing on contact, but not stopping. Haku pulled his face back into the mirror, letting the shuriken smash into it and shatter.

Seeing that his attack was useless, Kakashi jumped away and began to flash through handsigns, _**"Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!"**_

Kakashi exhaled an enormous fireball, sending it straight for Haku's ice mirror. The flames enveloped the ice, covering and heating it, but when they finally cleared, the mirror was for the most part unscathed. The extent of the damage were minuscule amounts of water dripping off the ice, and those refroze in seconds.

"Damn it!"

Haku looked on impassively. His face, though lacking his signature mask, was completely unreadable. The only forms of visible emotion were his eyes, darkened with determination and a willingness to do whatever it took to make his master's dream come true. _I still cannot make full use of my arms..._

The boy raised one of his hands in a half-seal, sending a pulse of chakra outwards. Then, surrounding the leaf jounin, more ice mirrors began to form, until they encompassed him in a dome, barely two feet between each mirror. Images (or were they actual copies?) of Haku then flickered into existence within each and every mirror, all of them wearing the same face, that same _emotionless_ face.

Haku then brought up his hands together and began to move them through handsigns, _**"Hyouton: Tsubame Fubuki! (Snow Storm Swallows!)"**_

From within the mirrors, each image(copy?) of Haku flung their arms outwards, releasing a swarm of small ice-birds.

Kakashi only had seconds to react, and his mind raced, turning to his sharingan for help, _Twenty-five mirrors, an average of forty-three birds per mirror and more coming, that's at least one-thousand, seventy-five birds. Chance of Escape: 6 percent. Recommended Course of Action: Katon, Doton, or Raiton Jutsu- Defensive. I don't have any defensive lightning jutsu, and there's no earth around here so..._

_**"Katon: Hi Kapuseru! (Fire Capsule!)"**_

Directing his face upwards, Kakashi took a deep breath and spat out a glob of fire through his mask. The glob then expanded, changing into the shape of a disk and growing until it was wider than Kakashi was. The edges of the disk then dropped down, enveloping the copy-nin in a protective shield.

Haku's ice birds flew harmlessly into the capsule, melting on impact.

Inside, Kakashi could feel his chakra rapidly draining away, as he fought to keep his jutsu going. Haku was in no better position, _Tsubame Fubuki _being a very chakra-demanding jutsu, and prolonged use of it was nigh-impossible.

Their thoughts mirrored each other: _I can't keep this up for long..._

--

"Rah!"

Meanwhile, Zabuza, outside the ice dome, was having trouble un-nailing his feet. He was a little dizzy from blood lost, and having his eardrum shattered didn't help much either.

"You look like you need some help."

Naruto and Sasuke had moved in front of the swordsman, intent on getting and keeping his attention. They remembered Sakura's words, asking for a diversion:_ "I need you guys to distract him for a bit, get all his attention on you. _The too had looked at the girl like she was crazy, but she had insisted_ "Just a few minutes, trust me." _

Sasuke had been a little reluctant to go with Naruto's plan, but he didn't have any better non-violent plans.

"Sooooooooooooo, you want an energy bar or something...?" Naruto asked conversationally. "I mean, I don't _have_ one, but I could go find one for you if you want. What flavor would you prefer? I'm quite fond of vanilla myself. I especially like it with rainbow sprinkles."

Sasuke sighed and turned to his teammate, "You're thinking of ice cream, idiot."

Naruto flinched as if slapped, "Oh... right. Well, you want some ice cream, Zabuza? I think I actually _do_ have an energy bar, though... somewhere." The blond began patting himself down, searching through all his pockets and even his weapon pouches.

Sasuke slapped his forehead, "I don't think he's hungry, dobe."

"Well, how do _you_ know, Sasuke? Are the Uchiha's psychic now?"

"Look, if he was hungry, he wouldn't be glaring at us."

"Well, maybe he's angry 'cause you're not letting me give him the food!"

"He's mad because he doesn't feel like eating right now!"

"Look at all that blood! How could he not be hungry!"

"What does that have to do with- You know what? Let's just ask him." Sasuke turned to Zabuza, preparing to question the man about his appetite. He was interrupted by Naruto.

"I already asked him if he was hungry, dickweed!"

"But he didn't answer you!"

"So you think he'll answer _you_!?"

"Why not!?"

"Because he didn't answer _me_!"

"WOULD YOU IDIOTS SHUT UP!?" Zabuza screamed.

"Look what you did, Naruto, now you got him mad!"

"Me!? It was you!"

"You're the one who wanted to feed him energy bars!"

"You're the one who _kept _me from feeding him energy bars!"

"He's not hungry!"

"Yes, he is!"

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU FUCKING RUNTS!"

"Actually, Zabuza," Sasuke said smartly, turning back to the mist swordsman, "I'm normal size, Naruto's the runt."

"My dick's bigger than yours!"

"I doubt it, Uchiha's are widely known for having extremely large penises."

"Yeah, right. Prove it!"

"Okay, on the count of three."

"You got it, one..."

"Two..."

"You two better fucking not- What?"

"What?"

"What?"

Zabuza had stopped halfway through his threat, and was now staring up at the sky. After a moment, the ex-ANBU reached down and began furiously pulling at Kakashi's kunai. The mist ninja's hands were shaking, and he was having no success removing the knives. Every time he managed to move them in any way, a fresh wave of pain exploded throughout his body.

Pain and blood loss clouding his judgment, Zabuza didn't bother to wonder how on earth a giant fireball was falling from the sky. Nor did he hear Sakura's cry of _**"Magen: Jigoku Gouka no Jutsu! (Demonic Illusion: Hellfire Technique!)"**_

As the imaginary flames flew closer and closer to Zabuza's body, the man began to panic more and more. Gone was the veteran ninja who had stricken fear into the hearts of hundreds, gone was 'the Demon of the Hidden Mist,' all that remained was a scared, panicky man who had lost his mind and was giving in to base instincts.

Such was the power of genjutsu.

Naruto and Sasuke looked on confused. Naruto wasn't actually confused, but had to keep up appearances.

They watched Zabuza freak out for a bit, but eventually remembered that they had a job to do. Sasuke glanced over at Sakura, catching the pink-haired girl's eye. She nodded. With a sigh, he pulled out a kunai and took a few steps towards Zabuza. Naruto looked on solemnly, preparing himself in case the mist ninja tried anything. Zabuza would have to die.

The man in question was in no position to be plotting anything, his mind was too frantic, too unorganized.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god! It hurts! I can't move the knife! I should just wait for Haku to take it out, but the fucking sky! Why isn't he coming!? That useless boy! He should be here! What, doesn't he see it!? Oh god, it's getting closer! I should, but I can't! God damn it! Wait a second, those kids! They're coming closer! Why would they be coming closer? Can't they see the fucking fireball!? What am I the only one who can see that thing!? OH...god? Wait, I'm the only one who can see it? But... how? Uhhhh, ahhh, what's the word? Why can't I- why can't I remember? They're using, g... ge...gen...genjutsu! But... if it's genjutsu, the pain from the kunai should have canceled it out! Unless...they fucked up my mind, those little fuckers! Release!_

"Release!"

Sasuke flinched at the sudden sound. It seemed like in a single moment of clarity, Zabuza had managed to rip the kunai out of his feet. _Sakura was using a genjutsu... and he broke out!_

Zabuza came at Sasuke with the knives he had ripped out of his feet. The boy brought up his own blade in a feeble defense, but the larger man quickly overpowered him. Sasuke's kunai was pushed to the side, and Zabuza brought his back up for another blow.

_**"Armor Break!"**_

Naruto moved in swiftly, delivering a punch to Zabuza's gut. The mist ninja's eyes rolled back into his head, before stumbling away. "Come on, Sasuke!" the boy yelled. "Sensei already weakened him, we just have to finish him!"

_That fucking attack again..._

Sasuke nodded and got to his feet. He steadied his grip on his kunai and glared at the mist ninja. "Yeah, let's do this," he said.

Zabuza shook his head, "You boys really want to take me on?"

_**"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"**_

"Is that a yes?"

Naruto created four clones and sent them all running at Zabuza.

_**"Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!"**_

Sasuke took a deep breath and released it in the form of a fireball.

Naruto's clones assaulted Zabuza with taijutsu. The man's feet were still injured, and because his pain was amplified by the Armor Break, he was forced to stay in one place as he fended off their attacks. He was so focused on fighting without moving his feet, it was almost too late when he saw Sasuke's jutsu.

Zabuza would have dodged, but because the clones were still there, he had no room to maneuver. The fireball was going to barrel right through bunshins, meaning that by the time he got the opportunity avoid it, he would be unable to. The only plausible course of action was to jump, and he did.

Zabuza body exploded in pain, the wind rushing through the holes in his feet doing nothing to soothe his agony. He winced and dropped one of his kunai, allowing Sasuke and Naruto time to keep up their attack.

The sound of steel whizzing through the air caught his attention and as soon as he looked, Zabuza saw the shuriken aimed for his body. The blond kid then shouted out _**"Projectile Shadow Clone Jutsu!"**_

The four throwing stars multiplied into forty, and they were all positioned in such a way that they would all hit Zabuza. The mist ninja, however, would not be so easily defeated and pulled a swift kawarimi, substituting himself with a bag of cement.

The bag was ripped to shreds.

Sasuke then ran forward, using his superior speed to appear near Zabuza, kunai in hand. The boy slashed at the older man, but the blow was ducked under and countered with a punch to the sternum. Sasuke's eyes bulged out of his head, and he instinctively reached for his chest, though it would do nothing, leaving his face open to attack. Zabuza raised the remaining kunai in his hand and stabbed downward.

His blade would have connected with the back of Sasuke's head if not for a shuriken, thrown from his left, that collided with the hilt of his knife, knocking it off-course. The timing was perfect.

Zabuza glanced to his side, but saw, not Naruto, but Sakura's arm extended in a throwing motion, _Where's the blond?_

A shift in the air alerted Zabuza to the boy's position: right above him.

Naruto brought his leg down in a brutal axe-kick to the head, jarring the older man's senses. Then, pushing off with his heel, Naruto rolled to the right, pulling Sasuke's shirt and dragging him out of harm's way.

The demon container then ran back to Zabuza's stunned body and delivered a strong left hook to the man's face. Zabuza stumbled back once more, giving Naruto time to prepare what he hoped would be his final attack.

Time seemed to slow down as the blond pulled his fist back, cradling it in his side. His hand started to literally _glow_ with chakra as he began to pump whatever remained of his energy into it. Widening the distance between his legs, Naruto struck out, slamming his supercharged fist into Zabuza's chest, _**"Power Break!"**_

--

Within the ice dome, the last vestiges of Kakashi's chakra gave out, his Sharingan having drained him of too much of it for him to go on. As his jutsu began to fail, the jounin's eyes slowly started to droop, consciousness abandoning him.

"Goodbye, Sharingan no Kakashi," Haku said, he too ending his jutsu. The boy shakily reached for the senbon he always kept hidden on his person, and lifted his arm. As he prepared to throw them, he suddenly got a intense feeling of chakra being stored and molded into a very familiar shape. It took him barely a moment to realize what he had forgotten.

_Zabuza-sama!_

--

Zabuza screamed.

He could _feel _his pectorals being ripped apart and his diaphragm collapse. He _knew_ that that was his trachea disintegrating, and there was no way in hell that anything that hurt _that_ much wasn't his lung shriveling up and fallling off.

Zabuza screamed, and that had become a much too common occurrence for Haku.

_**"Aisu Dangan!(Ice Bullet!)"**_

The ice manipulator spat out a ball of compacted ice at the back of the only person between him and Zabuza, Naruto. The blond, turning around, saw the projectile heading straight towards him, so he jumped out of the way, dodging it by a large margin. Unfortunately for Haku, Naruto was the _only _thing between him and Zabuza.

After Haku fired off the 'bullet,' he had no way of controlling it's trajectory, meaning that it would continue on its path until it slammed into _something_, something like Zabuza. The most the boy could do was send out a pulse of chakra to disrupt the chakra already in the jutsu and turn it back into water. But it doesn't matter if it's frozen or not, if liquid hits someone hard enough, it will _hurt_.

"Arrgh!"

Zabuza let out a yell like a wounded animal, the water leaving a dark red splotch over his chest. Haku, forgetting all about the battle, almost rushed over to Zabuza's side. Almost.

_**"Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!"**_

Sasuke spat out an enormous ball of fire at the ice-user. Haku, glaring daggers at the fire breather, let his ice mirrors dissolve, he would need the chakra.

The fake hunter ninja jumped into the air to dodge the attack and barely managed to flick his wrists, the senbon intended for Kakashi flying straight at Sasuke. The Uchiha dodged the needles with ease, and jumped into the air, _**"Konoha Senpuu!"**_

Sasuke spun around and kicked his leg out, moving so quickly that it stirred up a wind. Haku ducked under the other boy's Leaf Whirlwind and slammed his forehead into Sasuke's spine, eliciting a gasp of pain. Sasuke arched his back, trying to get the bruised area away from Haku. The ice user, however, headbutted Sasuke again, but this time in the back of the head. Haku moved for another a strike, but, he feeling someone behind him, he whirled around. _The girl? _

Sakura pulled back her fist for an attack, but Haku was too fast. Jerking his shoulder, the boy flung the full weight of his arm at her face, knocking her to the side. Haku then attempted to turn back to Sasuke, but he was interrupted. One fist, tanned and calloused, slammed into his face from the left. The other, paler and a bit more bony, struck out from his right.

Both rammed into his head with all the fury of two pissed off teenage ninjas.

A kage bunshin appeared beneath him, catching the girl he had slugged.

_Za... bu..._

--

"So it's over?" At Sasuke's barely perceptible nod, Naruto let his legs give out and sighed. _Okay, so we beat Haku and Zabuza. What's next? _A moment later, Sasuke's legs too trembled and collapsed. The dark haired boy couldn't help but let a relieved sigh mirroring Naruto's own

"Sasuke..."

"What?"

"Sensei's probably not gonna wake up for a while, and we can't just leave these two here..." Naruto left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

"Right," Sasuke said, with a tone of finality. His eyes took on a hardened look, "Right..."

"So..." Naruto trailed off.

A moment later, a new, condescending voice, cut through the still-present mist, sounding like it got a lot of practice talking about itself, "Well, well, well, look what we got here..."

Eventually, as Zabuza's Hidden Mist jutsu began to fade, a small, unimposing figure appeared, wielding a cane and wearing a business suit. "I came here expecting to find shinobi, and yet I find two little boys playing ninja, how cute." A few seconds later, the fog cleared even more, revealing the rather large _mob _that the 'unimposing figure' had brought with him.

Naruto didn't groan, though he had to fight not to. He just got up, along with Sasuke, and stared down the large group of killers just _dying _to get a piece of them.

"Wonderful."

* * *

_**Jutsu List**_(won't this be fun? The ones not listed are either somewhere else in this fic, or common sense)

Suiton: Mizu no Yaiba Jutsu(Water Style: Water Blade Jutsu)Self-explanatory, creates a sword made out of water. Original.

Lightning Blade a.k.a. Raikiri-Kakashi's only original technique. User directs chakra to the palm of their hand and moves at insane speeds to impale their opponent. If you don't know what this is...

Water Style: Aqua Jet Jutsu-User attaches water to their feet, and then their heels explode jetting themselves forward. Pokemon.

Ninpo: Art of the Flame Phoenix-Balls of fire circle the user, then, with a burst of chakra the flames turn into phoenixes and strike their target. Ninja Gaiden 2.

Hyouton: Makyou Hyoushou! (Demonic Ice Crystal Mirrors!)Haku's ice mirror jutsu. Allows the user to move around from mirror to mirror and fire off attacks.

Hyouton: Tsubume Fubuki(Snow Storm Swallows)User sends out birds of ice to attack. Now that I think about it, it's kind of similar to _Art of the Flame Phoenix_. Naruto, Movie 1.

Katon: Hi Kapuresu(Fire Style: Fire Capsule)User protects themselves by blocking themselves into a dome/shield of fire. Original.

Aisu Dangan(Ice Bullet)User spits out a ball of ice that moves at very fast speeds. Can be disrupted by a pulse of chakra. Original.


	16. Geosgaeno

Bolded words are generally jutsu. Generally. Though they could totally not be. And I _may _have gone overboard on the yelling and the screaming in this chapter. But again, I could totally not have. Also, I am _dark._ Might want to reread the whole story seeing as its been a while since I updated, and I changed some things around, nothing major.._  
_

_**Chapter 16: Geosgaeno**_

_Last time:_

_Eventually, as Zabuza's Hidden Mist jutsu began to fade, a small, unimposing figure appeared at the unfinished end of the bridge, wielding a cane and wearing a business suit. "I came here expecting to find shinobi, and yet all I can see are two little boys playing ninja, how cute." A few seconds later, the fog cleared even more, revealing the rather large mob that the 'unimposing figure' had brought with him._

_Naruto didn't groan, though he had to fight not to. He just got up, stood side by side with his teammate, and stared down the large group of killers just _raring_ to get a piece of him._

_"Oh... Wonderful."_

--

Inari was generally a boy who always took no for an answer.

He would scream, "Please help my dog."

And they would say, "No."

He would plead, "Please don't let me drown."

And still, they would say, "No."

He would beg, "Please don't kill my dad."

And they would only scoff, "No."

For a long time, the only thing that bothered Inari enough that he argued about it was Gato.

They would say, "We can stop him," and he would reply, "No, we can't."

They would say, "He's evil," and he would respond with: "What are you going to do about it?"

They would try to reason with him, "Someone has to put an end to all this."

And he would only say, "But no one can."

It may seem callous, or like an act of cruelty, but Inari didn't want anyone else to have to experience the same kind of pain that he had: the pain of hope, and the pain of loss. In Inari's eyes, _anyone _who tried to challenge Gato was only setting themselves up for pain, for senseless pain.

There weren't many of them, the Land of Waves having lost much of their hope in the earlier days of Gato's reign, but every once in a while some idiot with a dream came rolling on through, trying to stir up a fight. A fisherman here, and a sailor there; once, there was even a pirate who thought _he _could take control. Nothing worked, nothing changed.

But then, there came along a ninja, a ninja who also talked of fighting and change. And for a while, Inari argued with that ninja, too. "_No matter what you do, no matter what you say you're going to do, the weak are always going to lose to the strong! You're all gonna DIE!" _he had screamed in frustration.

And it had pissed him off even _more _that this ninja just wouldn't take no for an answer:_ "Oh me! Oh my! All he ever does is cry! Oh gee! Oh no! Oh please Inari, don't go! Why fight? Why try? When all you're gonna do is die? Hmph! Go ahead and run, you little brat, I don't back down from anyone."_

But still, Inari ignored the ninja, even when the ninja's friend told him the same things:_ ""Don't ever run away, don't ever hide... and never stop fighting. If you try to get away, and you somehow succeed... you'll begin to regret living when everyone else is dead."_

It didn't matter what anyone said, or what anyone else believed, Inari was stubborn, and his way was set in stone. He didn't care at all about other people, only _his _problems mattered: _"He too grew up without a father, or a mother for that matter, but eventually found someone to fill the gap. And his new father was murdered, too, just like yours. The difference between you two is that Naruto already got his revenge, and now he doesn't have a target, or anyone to blame. He's empty inside, and doesn't have a single friend in our village, and yet... I've never seen him cry or complain, not even once. He's always trying his hardest to get people to notice him, or to simply acknowledge his existence. He probably just got tired of crying, and decided to do something about it."_

Inari didn't care, Inari didn't _believe_, because Gato was unstoppable and _nothing_ could be done about it.

Then came the day when two men came to his house and kidnapped his mother, and one of the ninjas, one of the same ninjas he had scoffed at and disregarded as useless, fought off the swordsmen, and by extension: _Gato_. That ninja, that _shinobi_, made Inari see for the first time that something _could _be won from fighting, and that change _could_ happen.

It was an epiphany, and at the same time, hope. Hope for the future, and hope for what could be, hope for _change_. Viva la revolution and all that.

So Inari picked up an old crossbow his family kept hidden in the basement, grabbed a quiver of rusty arrows, and headed off to the bridge, his blood pounding and his heart racing, because with two simple acts of murder, some ninja had convinced him to believe in the "good fight."

_Don't worry guys, I'll protect _everyone_!_

Inari promised himself then and there that Gato wouldn't hurt anyone else, that he wouldn't _let_ Gato hurt anyone else, even if it cost him his life.

_Even if it costs me my life!_

He would make sure that Gato didn't destroy anymore homes, that he wouldn't destroy anymore families, Inari promised himself that from then on out, he would live a life with absolutely _no _regrets.

_And I'll do it with these two arms!_

--The Bridge--

"Well, kids," Gato said, speaking with an air of superiority, "we're here to finish off that old man you've been guarding, so if you would kindly step aside, we've got business to attend to."

_Is he fucking kidding us?_

The mist enveloping the bridge had all but faded, leaving absolutely nothing to obscure the businessman's form, and now, just looking at him, Naruto couldn't help but stare incredulously. _This _was supposed to be Gato? The fearsome shipping magnate? The man who had managed to bring the entirety of Wave Country to its knees?

_But he's so... small!_

Naruto snuck a glance over at Sasuke and noticed that, from the look on his face, he too had his doubts. _But still, better to err on the side of caution... I guess.  
_

"Hell no, you stupid piece of shit!" Naruto shouted back. Caution was great and all, but Gato had just brutally mauled and mutilated one of the oldest lines in the Evil Villain's Handbook. Naruto just wasn't going to let him get away with that, no sirree. "If you think we're going to back down from a midget in a business suit, you must be dumber than you look!"

Gato's eyes widened, him being so unused to such disrespect. The businessman's mouth dropped open in surprise as his head tried to process the fact that _another _child had just dared to insult him again.

He was not pleased.

"What the hell did you just say to me, you little brat!?" he roared. "I am the Great Gato-sama! The Sultan of the Seas, and Lord of the Land of Waves! How dare you talk to me like that!"

Seeing the small man's temper begin to rise, Sasuke sighed and looked over at his blond teammate, whispering, "You just had to try and piss him off, didn't you?" Naruto didn't bother to respond. "What the hell is wrong with you, you idiot?"

"Answer me, you stupid son of a bitch!" Gato screamed.

Naruto thought about Sasuke's question for a second, _What indeed?_

"I _said_ that I'm astonished that anyone could be afraid of a half-pint, mousy little midget with a perm!" Naruto yelled. "Sorry if I got the wrong impression, _your majesty_, but you're trying to pass yourself off as important by surrounding yourself with a group of large half-naked men! Excuse me if I don't recognize your so-called greatness, O' Almighty Gato!"

He grinned.

"You think you're clever, boy!?" the businessman screamed back, waving his cane around in fury. "You think you're funny!? I'll kill you! I'll break your scrawny little neck!" The businessman bared his teeth in anger, and slammed his cane down in rage. He then began to yell at the men behind him, not even bothering to turn around to speak with them, "Whoever the hell brings me that kid's head gets a big bonus, alright!? I want his blood! His fucking blood! And I want it all over this damn bridge! Mousy little midge- How dare him!? I'll- I'll- Argh! What the hell are you doing still here!? Go and kill that little fucker!"

A split-second later, Gato's mouth snapped shut, and the small man quickly held up his hand behind him, a motion he used to tell his soldiers to wait. His pupils slowly drifted to the bottom-lefts of his eyes, then flicked back upwards to focus on Naruto. "On second thought," the magnate said, speaking in a much slower, yet still angry, tone, "I don't want you to kill the runt just yet. I want you to do his friends and the bridge builder first, that way we can make him watch." Gato began to cackle evilly as he continued, "And make sure you take care of Zabuza and his lapdog, too, even if they look like they're already dead."

The businessman took a deep breath, puffing up his chest, and bellowed loudly, "Alright, now GO! And remember, I want the blond alive!"

Gato grinned insanely as he waited for his thugs to go rushing forward, but a few seconds passed and he began to notice that none of his men were moving.

So he waited one more second. Just one more.

One Mississippi.

Gato turned around, his anger reignited. "What the hell are you guys waiting for!?" he shouted, walking towards them.

When he got no answer, Gato screamed again.

"Dammit, answer me!"

The businessman took a few more steps.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Gato's face scrunched up in confusion as he began to really look at his men. Years of dealing with seedy business owners and corrupt politicians had sharpened his perception, and in a near-shinobi display of it, the small man managed to connect some very dark dots.

First(Firstly?), his goons, foregoing all thoughts of money and bloodshed, hadn't bothered to spare him a single glance at his call, meaning that they had something more important than their paycheck holding their attention. Secondly, their mouths had dropped open, and their eyes had widened, several had begun to tremble and one or two had even lost their grip on their weapons: classic signs of fear. These men were _killers_, hardened, blood-thirsty, grizzly _killers_, and they were showing symptoms of pure, unimaginable _terror_: Gato knew he had reason to be wary. Almost inaudibly, low murmurs began to drift up from the large group of thugs.

"N-no way..."

"That- that _thing _can't be real..."

"My god..."

"It's a monster..."

Thirdly, the mercenaries were staring over the edge of Tazuna's bridge. Nothing good ever happens when people start looking over bridges. Ever.

Slowly, all the men began to back up, moving away from the sea and cautiously towards the island of Wave, as if they were trying to get away from the water.

"Hey! You guys better-"

Gato, losing his patience, pushed his way through the men and stomped furiously towards the unfinished portion of the bridge. "Get out of my way!" he screamed. Though the magnate was no fool, and recognized the danger signs, Gato hadn't obtained dominion over an entire country by being _cautious_.

Bracing against his cane so as to not lose his balance, he peered over the edge.

A moment passed.

"There's nothing there, you morons!" he shouted, looking back over his shoulder. Glaring at his soldiers, the businessman righted himself and straightened out his suit. "You dumbasses got me all worked up for nothing! What the hell had your panties all twisted up in a bunch!?"

The mercenaries stared at their boss as if he was crazy, but nonetheless inched their way back over to the end of the bridge: they had regained some measure of money-grubbiness. As a group, each man glanced over the edge of the bridge, and saw that it was exactly as Gato had said: there was nothing in the water.

But then, what had they-

**Thud.**

---

Naruto and Sasuke's heads snapped down to look at their feet, their attention drawn from the spectacle at the other end of the bridge. They couldn't be sure what it was, or even if it had actually happened, but they were pretty sure that something had just _rammed _into one of the bridge's support beams, the only things keeping the metal monstrosity upright.

**Thud. **

Now they were sure.

**Thud.**

**Thud.**

_Someone should probably do something,_ Naruto thought absentmindedly. Glancing around, he noticed that everyone had frozen and was staring dumbly at the bridge. _Weird, I can't seem to move either..._

**Thud.**

**Thud.**

**Thud.**

**Thud.**

**Thud.**

**Thud. ****Thud.**** Thud. ****Thud. ****Thud.****Thud.****Thud.****Thud.****Thud.**

**THUD.**

**THUD!**

Under the force of the last hit, the bridge began to buckle.

The beam that had been the target of the attack was positioned at the forefront of the bridge, the end that led to the mainland and the end that Gato and his cronies were currently standing on. The members of Team 7 on the other hand, were situated further back, closer to the island of Wave.

**SKRREEEEEEE!**

The sound of screeching metal filled the air as the damaged support beam began to give way under the weight of the bridge.

After taking multiple hits from the something in the water, the pillar's damaged steel lacked the strength to hold up the portion of the structure's mass it was supposed to, leading to it, the pillar, giving in to gravity and collapsing into the sea. The vibrations resonating along the surface of the bridge sent shivers flying up and down the spines of everyone there, and only added to the tension in the air.

There was a moment of tranquility up above on the bridge, a moment where everyone just sort of stared at each other wondering what the hell was happening.

**Thud.**

And then the other column came under attack.

**Thud. **

**Thud. **

**THUD.**

**THUD!**

Since it was being forced to support the weight of the bridge all by itself, the second pillar was already succumbing to the laws of physics faster than it should have, but with the added stress of a physical assault, there was no way in hell that it would remain standing for long. Within seconds, Support Beam No. 2 cracked, and after a minute of a near constant barrage, it collapsed, following its brother into the sea.

And then with nothing left to hold up that end of the bridge, it too began to bend under the force of its own weight.

The edge tipped downwards, slanting at a steep enough angle so that anyone standing too close to the it would be lost to the sea. Unfortunately for Gato and his cronies, _they_ were standing too close to the edge, and _they_ were lost to the sea.

_Bummer._

Having absolutely no ninja training, the men were hopelessly unable to regain their balance, and almost immediately fell into the water.

Doubly unfortunately, they weren't alone.

"What the hell is that?!"

An enormous set of skeletal jaws erupted from underneath the group of mercenaries and thugs, momentarily enveloping a small number of them. The jaws were attached to a face, and the face was attached to a wicked-looking giant fish. Large green wings extended from either side of the monster's skeletal and corpulent frame, giving Naruto the false impression of some fallen angel, warped and corrupted by the sea.

_Man, I'm twisted._

For a few seconds, the scene looked almost surreal, rather like an artist's rendition of some overly complicated symbolism... but then the screaming started, and the illusion shattered.

With one big, bone-crunching chomp, the bodies of the mercenaries imploded_, _and the large otherworldly teeth crunched together.

Blood splattered the faces of the surviving men, while their shock and fear stunned them into inaction.

The screaming stopped.

Somewhere in the backs of their collective consciousnesses the goons realized that their meal ticket had been one of the men eaten, not that they particularly cared.

The beast moved.

And all hell broke loose.

--

Sasuke stood motionless atop the bridge, staring down at the waters.

Staring, and thinking.

Well, he was watching as well.

In particular, he was watching the- _animal?_- as it went on a killing spree. He watched, entranced, as blood literally _gushed_ out from between its jaws and into the sea. Blood, muscle, viscera... all bubbled up to the surface of the dark blue ocean, dyeing it red. It made him sick, it _disgusted_ him on even primitive levels, and it _screamed_ at every self-preservational bone in his body for him to get the _fuck_ away. And yet...

Sasuke stood motionless atop the bridge. And stared.

And thought.

This _thing _wasn't just some inconsequential _grunt_ to be dispatched, it _moved _through instinct, _attacked _through instinct, and _killed_ through _instinct_.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

This monster was as powerful as it was fast, as ruthless as it was strong...

And Sasuke wanted to _fight_ this beast, the damn lunatic.

His blood, his Uchiha blood, his _warrior _blood, called for it, demanded it, _begged_ for it. Something old, something ancient within him, something dark and angry, wanted this fight, even as Sasuke himself knew that he stod no chance. A creature- an adversary- of this magnitude, a _foe_ of this magnitude, it... it was- _My heart rate's gone up, _Sasuke noted absentmindedly. The young ninja's eyes glossed over for a moment as he attempted to regain control of his breathing, and for a few seconds, he managed to calm down.

Naruto's thoughts, however, were a bit less... organized.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh _hell_ no, hell _to the_ no, that's a... a... _

Naruto's eyes flickered back and forth, from the carnage in the water to his only conscious teammate, "Sasuke..."

"Yeah?"

"This is some serious shit, man."

"Yeah."

"Think we should do something about it?" Naruto asked with trepidation.

The strangest look came over the Uchiha's face and his voice cracked when he answered, "Yeah."

Naruto looked back over at him and sighed deeply, "You sure? 'Cause we can just go back to the island and forget this ever happened. Maybe dump ice-boy and sword-guy in the water, and just leave, man."

Sasuke looked over at _his_ only remaining teammate. "Idiot..." he muttered, his voice having lost all traces of venom.

The blond redirected his solemn gaze back to the sea, "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say..." Silently, Naruto began to sweat.

It was at that moment that memories, or _a _memory to be accurate, suddenly began to flood back into his consciousness. Specifically, it was the day that his master had died. The man's last eulogy had always been a topic of much discontent, discontent and fear.

_Naruto... the fiends will hunt you now, just as they once hunted me._

How was that not supposed to scare him? Monsters the likes of which the elemental countries had never seen before were just going to start appearing where ever they like. And then, competing in a mad dash to tear him limb from limb, they would scour his home, his village, his country, and quite possible the entire continent he lived on, in a search for him and all his squishy bits. And now? Now that it was coming true...?

_They believe we are connected._

It was like his one, most hated memory was returning to him with all the force of an enormous monster attacking an even greater bridge, except this time _he _was going to be the star, and there would be _no one_ around to listen to _his _last words. Except for maybe Sasuke, who, incidentally, would likely get caught up in the fight, if you could call it that, and also get brutally mauled by a demon in a monster's skin.

_You have to be ready for them._

How in the nineteen hells of Xergia was he not supposed to run away screaming like a little, prepubescent girl frightened by a gaggle of realistic, scaly, and slimy snakes? How!?

_Every story must have an ending,_

It was too hard...

_And this is mine._

Naruto blinked.

"Did I just... give up?" he asked himself. The blond lifted his hands up to his eyes and stared into his palms. He took a long look at the scars in his hand, the small smudges of dirt caked into them, and the large callouses that usually stood as proof that Uzumaki Naruto _did not _give up. "I did, didn't I? I just gave up."

Unnoticed by Naruto, the sound of an eerie howl began to rise up from the sea.

"Hey, idiot!"

"Why did I even try then? If I was just going to give up?" Naruto wondered bitterly._ Have I really become this weak?_

The howl became a screech.

"Naruto!"

The blond felt like slapping himself. For the first time in three years, even if it had been for only a moment, he honestly and truly forgotten just why he had had a replica of his mentor's- his _father's_- red coat made, and just why exactly wore it in his quest to kill those that needed killing. _Have I really fallen this far?_

The screech became a scream.

"Naruto!"

"That's right... it was because I wanted to be like _him_," the blond whispered. "I wanted to be a guardian, and he said that guardians protected those that were precious to them, no matter what that meant."

"Hey, loser!"

_My team is precious to me..._

The scream turned feral.

"NARUTO!"

"What!?"

"It's coming!"

_--_

Fiend Entry No. 96: Geosgaeno

As listed in the Fiend Bestiary; all stats to be recorded on a scale of 10 to 255. Danger level calculations to be based upon the abilities of trained fighters.

_Identifiable features: It's a large skeletal fish with tentacles and wings, you'll know it if you see it. The wing-like fins on either side of its body serve as arms, while its tentacles act as rudders. It has glowing appendages sprouting from its head and back, bone-like scales, and enlarged mandibles.  
_

_Endurance: 194  
_

_Strength: 114  
_

_Speed: 101  
_

_Intelligence: 42  
_

_Danger-Level (Solo): 222_

_Danger-Level (Partied): 91  
_

_Elemental Weaknesses: Fire__, Ice, Lightning  
_

_Resistances: None_

_Other notes: Don't let it inhale you. If it does inhale you and you're captured, don't struggle. If you struggle, Naruto, you will die. Eventually, so long as you don't fight too much, it will spit you back out. Do NOT let it hit you. Geosgaeno can, and will, kill you in a single hit. Avoid a confrontation if possible, use elemental attacks if not. It'll only appear in large bodies of water. Under no circumstances are you to face it without some sort of backup. And Naruto, none of that "I am__ the reinforcements!" crap._

_--_

**"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"**

With a massive leap into the air, followed by an equally impressive inhalation of oxygen, Sasuke flashed through the handsigns of his favorite jutsu and spat out an enormous ball of fire at the creature in the sea.

The flames of his attack closed in on Geosgaeno swiftly, burning so hot as to boil the very air itself with the intensity of their heat. Unfortunately, this sudden change in humidity acted as an indicator, allowing Geosgaeno to react quickly to the assault on its blindside and dive beneath the surface of the ocean before it could reach him. Sasuke's fireball hit the water instead, sending up a thick veil of steam that obscured each party from the other's sight.

"_Hrrrroooooowwwwww!"_

With a bone-chilling howl, Geosgaeno opened up its enormous mouth and roared_, _spitting out an frightening combination of sea water, saliva, and blood. The scream was meant to be used as an intimidation tactic, but it also served another purpose, unintentionally stirring up the smoke created by Sasuke's attack and letting the leaf ninja know where the beast would be attacking from next._  
_

**"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" **

Having recently re-staked his claim on his testicles, Naruto called out the name of his favorite jutsu as well, timing the production of his clones to coincide with Geosgaeno's reemergence from the sea. "Get 'im!" he called.

With a battle cry, nearly two dozen identical ninja fell down upon the beast, each one brandishing his own kunai and possessing the will to kill. As the clones landed, their twenty-two blades simultaneously pierced the bone-like scales of the fiend's body, each one reaching down just deep enough to scrape at the monster's first layers of flesh, just below its outer covering.

_"SKRIIIIIIIIIII!"_

Geosgaeno, with a screech that was more surprise than pain, began to gyrate rapidly in an attempt to shake off its unwanted cargo. After a time, the fiend saw the futility in this and dove once more beneath the surface of the ocean, hoping to lose the shadow clones in the chaos of the waves, where it knew it had the advantage.

Fortunately, the Naruto's were made of stronger stuff than that (namely dust and chakra, but that's not important), and it was unable to shake them off, even as it barrel-rolled and zig-zagged around in the dark sea water. Still, the constant lurching motions managed to disorient the bunshins enough to keep them from concentrating on a follow-up attack until a single unifying thought spread through them all.

_You're vulnerable to lightning, right?_

Naruto's replications held on tight to their knives with one hand, while they they used their other hands to gather chakra. With the help of their training in chakra control from the days previous, the blonds managed to increase the efficiency of their chakra manipulation two-fold, even while dealing with the fiend's nauseating movements.

**"Thunder!"**

With a collective cry, the bunshins released their gathered spiritual energies, converted it into lightning chakra, and sent it spiraling straight into the back of their foe.

--

"He he he..."

Naruto chuckled to himself, back up on the bridge where he, the original, had remained. The easily conducted lightning his clones had created had backlashed upon the replications, electrocuting them all into non-existence. He thought that had been rather clever of him, using an electrical attack underwater.

"Heh heh he- OW!" he exclaimed as he grabbed his head in pain. The blond's skull suddenly felt like someone had just slapped it with a... with a... with something that would cause him pain. "What the hell...?" he wondered.

Naruto lifted his head up to look back at the ocean.

Sasuke was situated a few meters out from the now-submerged end of the bridge, and was calmly scanning the water for signs of the fiend's resurfacing. The young ninja's eyes were rapidly flicking from side to side, taking in every minor wave and ripple of the ocean as they searched for their quarry.

"Damn thing can probably breathe underwater..." Naruto said bitterly.

The blond jumped off his perch and landed with both feet firmly planted on the water. Utilizing an instinct that wasn't really his, he directed his chakra to his feet, keeping himself afloat, and almost immediately he was filled with the cold sense of calculating rage that he had already begun to associate with water. It cooled his head.

_What the hell are we supposed to do if it doesn't come back up? _he thought as he joined his teammate in searching for the beast._ We can't exactly chase down the bloody bastard._

He needn't have cared.

Geosgaeno, as brutish and as stupid as it was, wasn't exactly the kind of creature that would back down from _any _opponent, not even one that it knew it could not beat. And Naruto and Sasuke, while exceptionally powerful genin, didn't rank up anywhere near the list of things that the greater fiends found frightening.

Geosgaeno would _not_ run away.

_"HRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"_

With another unearthly screech, the fiend burst through the water beneath Sasuke, catching the young ninja almost completely off guard. The monster's head rammed into the boy's feet, propelling him upwards. Luckily, the chakra Sasuke was already channeling to his legs was enough to cushion the blow enough to save him from ending up as just another splatter on the fiend's face.

Geosgaeno's body quickly reached the apex of its jump, and soon gravity began to take effect, pulling the monster back into the sea. It hit the ocean's surface hard, sending up a spray of sea water that obscured it from view, and when the waters had settled, the fiend had disappeared again.

Naruto blinked.

_"Hrroaah!"_

"Naruto, behind you!"

Putting his faith in Sasuke, the blond dashed forward, kicking up a thin mist of seawater as he quickly accelerated. He just barely managed to escape the jaws of the fiend behind him as he dove headfirst beneath the ocean surface.

Submerged within the sea, the boy began to channel his chakra into the water surrounding him, infusing it with his life force.

"**Mizu no Tatsumaki!"**

All of Naruto's stored air escaped his body as he called out the name of his attack, but apart from that, nothing else really happened.

_What the hell?! _

"**Mizu no Tatsu-** urrgh!"

Trying to call upon breath that wasn't there, Naruto accidentally inhaled a mouthful of salt water and choked on it. He instinctively grabbed at his throat, but that would prove futile as the sour liquid began to scrape at it from the inside.

_My chakra... Damn, I used it all up before!_

Kicking with his legs, the blond raced upwards in a bid for fresh air, hoping that his reckless dive had not carried him down too deep into the ocean. His throat ached terribly, and the sudden loss of control over the situation had thrown him off his game. So when Geosgaeno silently glided into place beside him, he almost took in another breath of sea water as he exclaimed in surprised.

"Bluurrgh!"

Desperate now, Naruto spurred forwards, frantically paddling with his arms as he struggled to out-swim the aquatic fiend. Geosgaeno did not strike at him, though, seemingly content with keeping pace with its prey. The beast coasted along, easily matching Naruto's speed as it began to lazily circle him. The blond genin could barely see the monster now, as it tauntingly swam in and out of his field of view.

"Gah!"

With one last final push, Naruto burst through the surface of the ocean, taking a deep breath. For a moment, he just floated there, reveling in the fresh oxygen that now filled his lungs. But the euphoria of not-dying didn't last very long, as he was quickly reminded that he was still in a life-or-death battle.

"Where the hell is it!?" Sasuke called, already recovered Geosgaeno's attack.

Still out of breath, Naruto began to turn his head from side to side, searching for the fiend that had just been right on his tail. He remained perfectly still, using his chakra to remain afloat so that only the movements of the fiend would cause ripples in the water. That's when he noticed it, a small whirlpool surrounding his body. _What the hell is that?_

The suction of the spiraling water wasn't near strong enough to pull him down, but it was still a sign that something was moving around him fast enough to create such a force. "Shit... Sasuke, do something!" Naruto yelled. "It's got me marked! If I move first, then it'll be able to see where I'm going and attack. But _it's _not going to make the first move because then I'll see where _it's_ coming from and counter."

Sasuke nodded at his teammate's analysis and began to look around for someway to get him out of his plight; it took him only moments to come up with a plan. Releasing the chakra he was sending to his feet, Sasuke dropped down into the water and pulled his leg up so that his knee was pressing into his side.

**"Leaf Whirlwind!" **

With a cry, the genin swung his leg around in an arc, simultaneously channeling his chakra through it. This combination of physical and spiritual prowess generated a wave of water and energy that carried itself towards Naruto and his stalker. The surging water disrupted Geosgaeno's path, while the foam created by the water's movements blocked its sight. Naruto took the opportunity that was granted then, and jumped out of the area, landing near where Sasuke was pulling himself out of the sea.

Unfortunately, this time Geosgaeno would not wait patiently before launching a counterattack, and it immediately charged the two leaf ninja. With another deafening roar, the fiend put on a burst of speed and flung out the wing-like appendage on its left side. The fin curled into a shape not unlike that of a fist and slammed into the spot where Sasuke and Naruto were standing. Had stood.

The two genin had reacted quickly and moved out of the way of Geosgaeno's attack before it could hit them. They both leaped into opposite directions, landing simultaneously and skidding to a halt on the ocean surface. "Stay separate!" Sasuke ordered, a plan in mind. "One of us hits it when it attacks the other!"

"Right!" Naruto affirmed, readying himself.

The young ninjas waited patiently, tense and ready for the monster's attack. Luckily, Geosgaeno had not re-submerged itself after its last attack, and was instead gliding about, trying to reposition itself into a more advantageous location.

"Keep it between us!" Sasuke shouted. "Two-man pincer formation, don't let it escape!"

Naruto nodded, then paused. "Hey, wait!" he yelled. "I can still make some clones, you sure you don't want me to box it in?"

"No, not yet," Sasuke replied. "If we do that, it'll go back under. Don't scare it, just make sure it can't see us both at the same time."

"If you say s-"

Geosgaeno interrupted the genins' conversation by coming off from its slow, circling pace and breaking left at top speed. Naruto and Sasuke responded almost instantly by sprinting to the left as well, trying to maintain their positions relative to the fiend. They were just barely managing to keep up with it's unexpected acceleration when the monster suddenly changed its direction again and shot off to the right. Following that, there was a series of near-constant direction and speed changes where Geosgaeno's movements were increasingly becoming more and more erratic.

"Back off!"

"What?"

"Just do it!"

At Sasuke's command, the two ninjas immediately stopped their pursuit of Geosgaeno and backpedaled away from it.

"Tired?" Naruto asked jokingly.

"It was getting frustrated," Sasuke said. "We need it to stay up on the surface."

"Hey, do you actually have a plan or are you just making this up as you go along?"

The Uchiha looked to his teammate then returned his gaze to the fiend, which was now swimming in a large circle around the two boys. "We need it to open its mouth."

"Why?"

"Look," Sasuke said, his eyes still on Geosgaeno, "your clones tried to stab it, right? But it's not bleeding, so its outer shell's either too hard or too thick for us to get through. We have to hit it from the inside."

"There are spaces in between its rib-things," Naruto noted, "we can hit it through there."

"That'll just hurt it," Sasuke stated. "If we can get its mouth open, I can shoot a fireball into it and boil it from the inside."

"Well, if we hit it through the gaps in its stomach-bones," Naruto countered, "the pain will make it scream."

Sasuke paused. "Do it."

"I'll need you to draw it's attention, then," Naruto said, pulling a kunai from its holster. "Just get it to raise its chest out of the water, that'll be good enough."

Sasuke nodded once, dipping his fingers into the pouch at his back. From it, he pulled two handfuls of shuriken and took aim. Releasing the throwing stars, the Uchiha flung them at the fiend, aiming for the small, glowing, and somewhat fleshy appendages that sprouted from its head. The projectiles struck true, slicing the tentacles at their tips and drawing the monster's blood for the first time.

_"Rwwwooooaarrrrrhhhh!"_

Geosgaeno immediately changed direction upon taking damage, rushing towards Sasuke's location in a blind rage. Naruto dashed out of the way of its charge, leaving Sasuke behind to put more pressure on the beast. The dark-haired genin bravely stood his ground and pulled a knife from his pouch, but, when the fiend was close enough, he leaped forward, flipping over it and landing on its back.

From its back, Sasuke ran up and forward, over its neck and onto its head. He shoved his hand into the remains of the tentacles he had cut off, and gripped them tightly for support. Rearing back, the boy raised his blade above his own head, before pitching forward and ramming it into the top of fiend's.

The result was not pretty.

Geosgaeno's brain was protected by three layers of hard exoskeleton, followed by another two layers of thin flesh, which in turn protected a much tougher endoskeleton that couldn't be broken unless you applied enough force to break a slab of solid steel. Of course, 'was' being operative word. You give anybody enough training in the ninja arts, and words like 'durability' and 'endurance' don't mean so much anymore.

Sasuke's kunai shattered the outer layers of bone, cut right through the flesh on the inside, and cracked and pierced the skull lying beneath, stopping just short of the brain. And though the attack wasn't a kill strike, it was still enough to incense the monster's already peaking fury.

_"Hhhrrrrrroooooooaaaauuuuuuuuuuuhhht!"_

Letting loose its most frightening howl yet, Geosgaeno began to thrash about wildly, bucking and jerking as it desperately tried to get its assailant _off_.

"Sasuke, lean back!"

"What!?"

"You know, like in those cowboy movies! When they pull back on the reins to stop the horses! Pull back on your kunai!"

"This isn't even close to the same situation, you idiot!"

"Do you have a better idea!?"

"I was planning on getting off this crazy thing!"

"And what would that accomplish!? Lean back!"

"What's _that_ going to accomplish!?"

"It's going to get that _crazy thing's _upper body out of the water!"

"Damn it!"

Sasuke, somewhat reluctantly, heeded his comrades advice and shifted backwards, pulling on his knife with all his strength. Geosgaeno soon felt the shift in the blade's weight, and reared its head back, hoping to keep the kunai from shredding anymore of its body. This served the purpose that Naruto needed it to, forcing the fiend to pull part of its torso out of the water.

"My turn."

Withdrawing a single shuriken, the blond measured his throw carefully, aiming for the gaps in the beast's chest. Then, making the absolute most of his momentary opportunity, he threw his bladed throwing star with practiced precision.

A moment passed.

Naruto's aim was perfect, and the shuriken neatly sliced through the hole in Geosgaeno's torso, managing to completely miss the bones guarding it. This allowed it to surge forward with all of its speed and momentum, so that when it impacted, it would do so with the full force of its power.

"And now..." Naruto's fingers danced through the handsigns he had become so accustomed to making in the last month, giving shape and form to whatever minute amounts of chakra he was able to drudge up.

"...the finishing touch: **Tobidougu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Projectile Shadow Clone Technique!) **Sasuke, I'd cover my ears if I was you!"

Naruto's single shuriken multiplied with the application of his technique, and since the projectile was already within the fiend's chest cavity when he used it, it was a one hundred percent chance that all of the replications would hit home. And well... one hundred percent is one hundred percent. The stars crashed into the fleshy inside of the monster, digging into its body and scratching at the nearly non-existent organs.

And so, Geosgaeno screamed; it had a habit of doing that.

_"Ssssrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggghhhhh!"_

"Go for it man!"

With a shout of encouragement from Naruto, Sasuke made his move. Scrunching his body up as tightly as he could, the genin pulled backwards on the knife he was holding onto. Then he relaxed his grip all at once, but still maintained his hold on the handle of the blade. This caused the kunai to rebound slightly against the elastic skin on top of the fiend's head.

This tiny motion was all that was needed to literally jump start Sasuke's maneuver. The boy used the small bit of momentum he had created with the action, along with some chakra, to magnify its effects on his being and springboard him over the monster's now vertical body and onto its face.

Geosgaeno's mouth was opened wide by its scream, and its head was forced to face upwards by the pain racking its body. Sasuke performed a split as he came down on its mouth, bracing one leg against the monster's lower jaw, and the other against its upper jaw, leaving him precariously suspended over the fiend's abysmal throat.

If Geosgaeno was able to open its mouth even just an inch wider, or if Sasuke's legs gave out for even a second, the boy would have nothing keeping him in place, and he would fall into the beast's waiting stomach. It was a huge gamble, but oh-so worth it.

**"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"**

In an absolutely _vicious _display of brutality and savagery, Sasuke took in a deep breath and _exhaled_, sending a ridiculously large fireball straight down the fiend's throat and into that same unfathomably vast stomach.

_"HROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"_

It. Was. Not. Pleased.

Luckily, or unluckily if you're rooting for the bad guys, there isn't much a skeletal fish can do when its stomach is jammed full with well over one-thousand degrees of Celsius measured chakra-fire. Not much at all.

The fiend dived beneath the surface of the ocean, screaming, squealing, _screeching_, hoping to put out the flames raging in its stomach.

But it would do so in vain.

You see, it is in the very composition of a ninja's fire jutsu that the inherent flaw in this plan lies. Chemically speaking, the only way to extinguish a fire is to deprive it of either its heat, fuel or oxygen. Diving underneath water is usually enough to rid a flame of all three of these things, exterminating it. It is not so with a shinobi's fire.

A shinobi's fire is heated by chakra, fueled by chakra, and oxygenated_ by chakra_. So long as the energy exists within the flame, it can survive, even in a place with nothing to burn and no air to consume.

Therefore, Sasuke's Goukakyuu wasn't going anywhere.

The flesh on the fiend's body was going to _melt_, the organs it had put so much energy into protecting were going to _boil_, and the bones that it had used to guard these things were going to _crack_ and _shatter_. Cartilage would break, tendons would snap, and ligaments would be damaged beyond repair. Sasuke's fire was going to sit, and it was going to _lick_, and it was going to _burn, _until Geosgaeno's insides were deep-fried in whatever stores of fat it had in its body.

And yet...

Animals can become tenacious creatures when they are faced with pain and death. They can become vicious creatures, _terrible _creatures who exist for sole purpose of wreaking havoc and causing pain. And if this happens, if they fall that far into their primal fury, they will do these things with every last ounce of their being, even if they are burning alive...

Geosgaeno was no exception to this rule.

Whatever higher brain functions and thought processes it might have had were long gone, replaced with a single-minded urge to kill. It would no longer eat for the sake of sustenance, nor hunt for the sake of pleasure, it was simply going to destroy for the sake of destruction.

And perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all.

--

Naruto smiled gleefully at the sight of the fiend being set aflame. He smiled and he jumped and he shouted in joy.

_We did it! I can't believe we did it! We actually _killed _that monster!_

So happy was the boy that his face nearly split in half with the force of his grin as he whooped and hollered and otherwise cheered for animal cruelty. "Hell yeah, you stupid animal! You like that!?"

Sasuke had managed to jump off of the fiend's face seconds before it had snapped its mouth shut and dived underwater, so stumbling back over to the submerged portion of the bridge, he sighed and nursed his right thigh.

"Ha ha, what I tell you, Sasuke? Easy as pie!" Naruto called, bounding over to him.

"What are you talking about!?" the Uchiha responded angrily, having turned his back to lean against the slanted bridge. "You wanted to run away and forget this ever happened, remember!?"

"Details, details," Naruto answered, waving his hand unconcerned. "Settle down, you're too tense. Take a moment to just enjoy the ocean air..." Sniffing twice comically, the boy exclaimed, "Aahhh, smells like burnt flesh!"

Sliding down so that that he was now sitting on a piece of metal, Sasuke scoffed at his teammate's antics. He rested his back against the cool metal of the bridge and groaned. "What the hell was that thing, anyway?" he wondered.

Naruto paused half-way in his appreciation for dead enemies and looked at his teammate nervously. "Who knows..." he answered, trying to act nonchalant. "A demon or something..."

Sasuke mulled that over as he looked up at the sky. "A demon, huh? Like the Kyuubi?"

"Well, yeah," Naruto acknowledged, managing not to flinch at the mention of the kitsune. "I mean, the fox couldn't have been the only one out there, you know?"

"Guess so..."

"Yeah..." Naruto's shoulders sagged, and all the energy he been displaying up until just a moment ago went away. If Sasuke noticed, he didn't say anything about it. "So what do we do no-"

"Guys!?"

A high-pitched voice suddenly carried itself over the bridge and down its sunken end to interrupt the two genin's conversation. The voice seemed like it was going to go on but it stopped abruptly and then restarted. "What the heck happened to the bridge!?" it asked loudly.

The two boys looked around curiously, searching for the source of the question. After a moment, though, they both looked up and tried to see onto the surface of the metallic structure, realizing that it had come from there. They were just about to start climbing the damaged bridge when they both managed to simultaneously put a face and a name to the voice they had heard. Their heads snapped down to look each other in the eye, confused and incredulous.

"INARI!?"

"Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy!"

The two boys looked up again, this time to see the smiling countenance of Tazuna's grandson. The boy was on his knees, bending over the part of the bridge where the steel had begun to bend and was waving down to them with a rusty crossbow.

"What are you doing!?" Naruto shouted up to him.

Inari, seemingly ignoring the blond's question, instead spoke to the one who had saved his mother earlier, "Sasuke, I came to help out!"

A tick appeared on Naruto's forehead. "Hey! _I'm_ talking to you!" he yelled in annoyance.

"I... I did good, right?" the boy asked hopefully, paying the shorter ninja no mind.

_"__Hello!"_

"Yeah, kid," came the arrogant-but-still-kind-of-encouraging reply.

"Hey!"

Inari grinned widely. "Heh he he," he chuckled, rubbing the bottom of his nose with a finger.

"Hey..."

"Go check on your grandpa, would you? I think he passed out or something."

"Not cool, guys..."

"Sure!"

"Aarrrgh! Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, finally recapturing his teammates attention and pointing an accusing finger at him.

"What?" the Uchiha asked, sounding annoyed.

"Why do you always do that!? It's not fair the way people always pay attention to you and ignore me!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sasuke said, standing up with a grunt.

"The hell you don't! You two were doing it on purpose!"

"Hey, quiet down, would you? Do you have to be so damn loud?" The Uchiha asked, rubbing his temples. He paused, and after a moment, he cocked his head and spoke again. "Just settle down, you're too tense," he mocked.

"Ha ha ha," Naruto laughed sarcastically, "That was so funny, I forgot to laugh."

"Then why did you, idiot?"

"B-be-because it was so _funny_, stupid," Naruto responded cleverly.

Inari, who had already seen to his grandfather and returned, now peered interestedly at the two boys' argument.

"_I'm _stupid?" Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're wearing white pants," Naruto reasoned, having regained his composure. "That makes you stupid."

"You're clothes are _orange_, you moron."

"What's your point?"

"Whatever."

Inari looked up from the conversation, having just caught the barest glimpse of something in the ocean. Whatever it was, it was causing steam to rise from the water, and was slowly turning it lighter and lighter shades of purple.

"Don't 'whatever' me, you glory hog, I'll kick your ass."

"_I'm_ a glory hog?" Sasuke questioned.

"Yeah, because, you know, you hog all the glory. And you're an attention whore."

"_I'm_ an attention whore?"

_What is that?_ Inari wondered, squinting so as to bring the thing into focus. The young boy had lived in the Land of Waves his entire life, and not once had he ever seen anything that looked remotely like the creature he was seeing now.

"You got a hearing problem or something!?"

"No, I'm just... Forget it, Naruto, we still have to take care of Tazuna and the rest of the team."

"Don't change the subject!"

"What subject!? You're just randomly throwing out insults!"

"Well I feel like randomly throwing out insults, so nya-"

_Thwip._

The sound of a metal arrow slicing through the air immediately put the two boys on guard. Sasuke, being the one with superior eyesight, saw it first and immediately traced its trajectory. Judging from the angle at which it was flying, he concluded that the bolt had come from Inari's crossbow, so he didn't bother to look for its origin. Instead, he followed the path that arrow _would _take and in doing so found its target.

"Oh god, it's still alive..." the Uchiha murmured.

Naruto followed Sasuke's line of sight, and soon saw what his teammate had seen. His reaction was just as disturbed:

"And its _still _on fire!"

Geosgaeno erupted from beneath the sea, sending scalding hot water splashing all over the boys and truly hurting them for the first time the entire battle. The fiend's large belly was literally filled to the brim with flames, so as fire gushed from its mouth and into the sea, the water around it was superheated to the point where it could inflict third degree burns.

Inari's arrow had hit home, piercing the thing's outer shell, but the tiny piece of sharpened metal could do nothing to impede the now-enraged monster's charge.

"Shit!" came the call, fueled by pain and surprise. "Move!"

At Naruto's cry both genin leaped to either side of fiend, hoping to confuse it. Unfortunately, Geosgaeno no longer particularly cared who it was attacking, and didn't bother to go after the elusive ninja when there was something much easier to kill. The monster's arm-like appendages rose up slightly, curling into fists in such a way that it resembled concentrating. After a moment, it lowered its arms and opened its mouth instead.

The fiend's gaping maw widened into a perfectly round circle, ballooning until it was twice the size of either boy. Then, Geosgaeeno pulled its head back, performing an action that looked remarkably like the human act of inhaling. Naruto paled.

Soon, water and air began to surge toward the fiend, filling its stomach even more so than the fire within it already was. But more than oxygen and hydrogen would be caught in its trap, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the blond genin.

"Inari! Get out of the way!"

"Aaaaahhhh!"

It was too late, the boy had already lost his grip on the bridge and was being pulled into the vacuum created by the beast.

Naruto jumped forward, attempting to tackle him out of the slipstream, but was too slow to save the younger boy and ended up being caught up as well. Unable to escape, the blonde was helpless to rescue himself or Inari, and was stuck trailing after him as he was sucked into the fiend's stomach.

The bridge builder's grandson was the first to be trapped within Geosgaeno's mouth, and as the monster felt the human meatbag hit its throat, he closed it forcefully, denying Naruto entrance. But the momentum of the fiend's action still carried, and the genin flew towards its closed jaws, bouncing painfully off of them.

As he fell downwards, Naruto prepared himself for the sensation of hitting the water's surface hard, tightening the muscles in his back. However, that was not the fate that awaited him, as Geosgaeno would instead raise one of its wing-like arms to catch the boy, curling what would be the fingers of the hand in order to contain him in its finny grip.

Rearing its fist back, Geosgaeno punched forward, opening its hand as it did so, and slamming Naruto's now bruised and battered body into the sunken part of the bridge. The boy had the breath knocked out of him, and he was fairly certain that he know had two or three cracked ribs.

As he tried to sit up, Naruto felt something shift in his abdomen, and he immediately fell back, returning to the position Geosgaeno had left him in.

_Nope, those are definitely broken, _he thought, gasping.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Inari's bloodcurdling scream cut through the air, causing Naruto, even in his injured state, to crane his neck in order to get a good look at the boy.

Tazuna's grandson had been captured by the fiend's attack, and was now trapped in its stomach. The same stomach, Naruto noted idly, that Sasuke had shot a fireball into, and therefore, the same stomach where the fire still burned.

Inari was trapped in an enclosed space with a giant fireball.

_Oh shit._

The boy's wounded screams soon debilitated into sobs of misery, but that did nothing to comfort the weakened genin. Occasionally, the flames of the fireball would flare up, eliciting more howls from the c,hild, whose skin was now charred and blackened from the fire's effects.

"MOMMY!!"

Inari cried heart-wrenchingly for his mother, as all children do when confronted with pain beyond belief. Sadly, the women was not there to help, and could do nothing to save him. His moans and sobs grew louder.

Geosgaeno could sense the life in its belly, could hear it scream and feel it struggle even through the flames that still burdened its body. The monster derived a sense of sick satisfaction from this, for it is as they say, misery loves company. Why should the fiend burn alone? To spare a child?

Naruto could only look on as the young boy was roasted alive, but Sasuke was at least in fighting condition.

The Uchiha charged the demon, pulling out a knife as he did so. Nearing the beast, the true intensity of the heat he had let loose upon it hit him for the first time, but he pushed on unabated. As he reached the Geosgaeno, Sasuke began to hack wildly at the fiend's outer shell, hoping to pierce it and force the monster spit Inari out.

Unfortunately, spitting Inari out was the last thing Sasuke should have made the fiend do.

A blue ball of energy grew from Geosgaeno's mouth, and Sasuke could see that Inari, as well as all the fire in the beast's stomach, had been transferred into it. The fiend _spat._

The ball of fire encasing the boy exploded when it impacted with the submerged bridge, only meters from where Naruto now lay.

Inari didn't move.

He didn't cry, he didn't scream, and he certainly didn't speak. There was nothing, nothing that could have signified death. There was nothing there that would make up for the fact that a young boy had just died. No last words, no eulogy, not even one last shuddering breath before he had passed on.

Inari's back was bent at an unnatural angle, and though his eyelids were open, his eyes could not be seen.

_Melted, _Naruto realized detachedly. Turning his head to stare at the corpse next to him, he went on in his thoughts.

_His eyes must have melted._

_

* * *

_Author's Notes:

So yeah, its been about two years since I've updated, but this chapter is nearly double that of the longest one I've ever written before, so... go wild. All eleven of you who care. And hey, at least some more final fantasy stuff showed up in this chapter, I bet no one saw _that _coming, or the ending there.

Also, if you think what happened to Inari was going too far, just wait until you see how this all plays out, I might have to bump this fic back up to an M-rating with all the violence that lies ahead. Doubly also, I hope to finally be done with Wave at the end of chapter seventeen, but if that doesn't happen, Squad Seven will definitely be back in Konoha by the time I finish eighteen.

Triple also: I rewrote some stuff, just kind of balancing everything out. Tried to make Naruto less wise, give Sandaime a bit more backbone in chapter three, Kakashi a little less of dick, and Sakura a tiny bit less screechy. I'm fairly certain Sasuke's still Sasuke.

And just to give you at taste of what's coming up next, the next chapter's title is:

**_Chapter 17: Overdrive  
_**


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